A.A. Chaudhuri on the evolution of the “Whodunnit”

My new thriller, The School Gates, centres on the murder of single mum, Lola Martinez, whose body is found on the riverbank the morning after a primary school parent Christmas social. Suspicion soon falls on Lola’s mum friends, but it’s also clear that someone from Lola’s past may have wanted her dead and that a friend Lola confides in online might have the answers. The story is told through the eyes of the investigating police officer as he interviews the various suspects in the present day, and from Lola’s perspective in a series of flashbacks starting from when her son joined the school up until her death. 

It is, of course, a classic domestic suspense thriller being set against the very relatable backdrop of a local primary school where the tricky interpersonal relationships between a diverse range of morally grey characters are explored in a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere, each of them hiding dark secrets which are gradually unveiled as the action progresses. However, with my main protagonist, Lola, murdered in Chapter One, and half the ensuing story told through the eyes of the investigating officer, DI Banner, The School Gates is also a whodunnit, making it a particularly stimulating, fascinating novel to write. And hopefully, to read! 

This isn’t the first time I’ve ventured into the intriguing, ever popular world of ‘whodunnits’ as far as my psychological thrillers are concerned. My third foray into the genre, The Final Party, centres around three couples who spend a week together in Italy to celebrate a fortieth birthday party. In the Prologue, the reader learns that one of the party is dead, and they are then taken on a complex, twisty journey back in time to discover who the victim is and how they met their unfortunate demise. The School Gates, however, is more of a classic whodunnit, in that we know Lola is the victim from the outset, and we follow Banner’s chain of enquiries as he interviews various suspects in Lola’s immediate parent circle, each of whom have a credible motive to have wanted her dead. 

Whodunnits remain a much beloved variety of crime fiction for a whole host of reasons. For readers, they offer the tantalising challenge of trying to solve a puzzle by making deductions from a series of clues the author will drop into the narrative, only to be thrown off track by a surprising twist or clever red herring which brings them back to square one. Whodunnit fans love nothing better than being taken on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns before having the wind knocked out of their sails by a final revelation that leaves them open-mouthed. That being so, it takes great skill to craft a story in such a way as to ensure that happens, with the reader left satisfied rather than short-changed. 

Trying to discern the killer from a varied range of credible suspects (as my detective tries to do in The School Gates) is a simple concept all things considered, but the crime writer will make it more compelling, suspenseful and difficult for the reader to solve through strong character development, the exploration of complex motives, and intricate backstory, all of which will hopefully keep them guessing and turning the pages and, even better, will mess with our minds!

Domestic suspense is, of course, a type of ‘psychological thriller’, and in recent years classic whodunnits have adopted more of a ‘psychological’ spin due to the former’s popularity since the release of Gone Girl. The focus isn’t just on the puzzle, clues and final reveal, i.e., the who, anymore, but each character’s inner monologue and what’s driving their actions, i.e. the why. They are still mysteries, of course, but they now tend to explore the psychology of the various suspects more deeply, thereby, in my view, enriching the story. Being a psychological thriller author, I really enjoyed exploring this combination in The School Gates, the school setting providing for a hotbed of simmering tension, poisonous mind games and deep discontent and in turn, ramping up the suspense in the reader’s mind. Likewise, rather than making him a gritty tough-talking detective, I purposely gave my investigating officer a much softer side, giving the reader an insight into his own inner struggles, attempting to show how the case affects him deeply having a young son himself, along with the stress and frustration he feels while investigating Lola’s murder and coming up against dead ends. 

In short, whodunnits are no longer confined to locked-room puzzles and smart deductions leading to the capture of a killer. They are now much darker and more complex, delving more deeply into the protagonists’ psychologies with reference to wider societal and social issues. This is turn makes them more relatable, with none of us being infallible human beings, but prone to the darker traits of human nature and susceptible to taking a self-destructive path. 

In The School Gates, while the reader follows Banner’s chain of enquiries which eventually lead him to unearthing Lola’s killer in the style of the classic “whodunnit”, we’re also offered an in-depth insight into events leading up to her death through Lola’s eyes; not just her own mindset and motivations, but that of other parents, thereby ramping up the suspense and uncertainty in readers’ minds, a device which hopefully keeps them guessing until the end! 

The School Gates by A A Chaudhuri (Canelo Publishing) Out Now

First comes gossip … then comes revenge. When single mum Lola Martinez’s son, Luca, starts school, she feels that she’ll never fit in with the yummy mummies in the playground. Confident, married to wealthy men, with ample free time, they are everything she isn’t. However, Lola is invited into the inner circle, surrounded by seemingly friendly people, even if Lola’s silence about her child’s father puzzles them. Despite herself, Lola quickly becomes involved in playground politics, making as many enemies as friends. But then Lola is brutally murdered, her death rocking the close-knit community. As the police investigate the case, they discover that Lola was hiding many secrets – as are the mums in her new social circle. But who had the most reason to kill her? And who else might unwittingly hold the answers to what happened that night?

More information about the author can be found on her website. She can also be found on X @AAChaudhuri, Facebook, Instagram @a.a.chaudhuri, Tiktok @alexchaudhuri0923 and Blue Sky -  @aachaudhuri.bsky.social

Rachel Lynch on writing The Rich

Writing The Rich was a new challenge for me after writing eleven Kelly Porter police procedural books, but that was the point; I wanted to explore a new world. The world of the privileged elite and how they seem to stay out of the crime statistics and tend to be treated differently, even when caught, fascinated me. 

Diving into a new setting in Cambridge, as well as a host of new characters filled me with both excitement and trepidation. I love crafting new personalities for my books, but pulling it off, after the Kelly Porter books achieving such incredible success, was daunting. Writing a psychological thriller, with untrustworthy characters, numerous villains and a flawed hero made me face a new set of rules. In police procedural, good battles evil and the detective solves the riddle in the end; in the world of the psychological thriller, it’s all about the twists and suspense, and I wanted to make The Rich a true whodunnit right to the last page.

Writing crime from the point of view of those involved, rather than a hero trying to do good, was also new. Doctor Alex Moore is a psychologist to the wealthy of Cambridge, and she counsels an array of clients, but her own life isn’t perfect. She has three children, all of whom struggle with their own pressures, and an alcoholic husband. I wanted to make Alex as vulnerable as her clients, because at the end of the day, she’s human too. Simply because she’s a therapist for other people’s problems doesn’t mean she has none of her own. It was important to me that none of my characters were untouched by trauma because I believe it’s more of a reflection of true life.

In exploring the devastating effects of tragedy on people’s lives, I wanted to shine a light on their secrets and how they lie to protect them. As Alex steers her clients through their healing, she doesn’t stay immune to the impact that one’s past has on the present. As all their pasts unravel, it’s soon clear that when a person carries damage around with them, they’ll go to startling lengths to deceive. The plot was a complex one, but I’m used to that with my Kelly books, and I enjoy giving the reader multiple voices to contend with.

There’s often a serious social injustice theme to my writing and the Kelly books handle tough topics such as knife crime, bullying, people trafficking, drug abuse and serious crime. I wanted to be just as robust with The Rich by exposing the glaring discrepancies in the incidence of crime amongst people with adverse childhood experiences. It’s indisputable that you’re far more likely to go to prison, become an addict, fail in school, or have a shorter life expectancy if you have faced several childhood traumas and I wanted to play with the concept that, as a result of this inequity, The Rich could literally get away with murder, because society believes a certain stereotype of a criminal. This is exactly what Doctor Alex exploits in The Rich and her knowledge of the system puts her at the centre of the race to find out who committed a terrible crime.

I must admit I do have a soft spot for the baddies I create. I have fun with all my characters, and I find writing despicable back stories highly entertaining. I hope that if I enjoy the creative process then it will come across in my writing and give my readers a more satisfying and rounded experience. I don’t shy away from hard-hitting subjects and the ending of The Rich is a good example of that. I like to push the limits of what humans will do, and the lengths they will go to avoid exposure. 

It was a fine balance juggling between the two sub-genres when I wrote The Rich. I was completing Kelly Porter book eleven at the time – I’ve just finished editing number twelve – and it was jarring moving between the two. Kelly is a rounded heroine – not perfect – who I’ve been told in reviews is highly relatable. Readers have every right to feel secure when they pick up a Kelly book that she’s going to catch the perpetrators in the end. I find that when psychological thriller fans pick up one of their favourites, they expect something quite different, and the early reviews of The Rich have borne this out. There is common loathing for some of the characters and that is the whole point. It’s not clear who is the perpetrator because they’re all flawed. The detective is inept too, which was difficult for me to craft after writing so many books about Kelly who is a consummate professional. It was hard for me to craft a police officer who is so clearly corruptible, like DS Hunt. Again, that was the point, he is blinded by the status of those he investigates and immediately looks to those with a background he sees as fitting what criminals should look like.

I would like to write more privileged thrillers, and I have plenty of ideas. It’s a well-known fact that, as humans, we judge people within seven seconds of meeting them and much of that assessment balances on appearance, accent, and perceived social status. This is how to get away with murder.

The Rich by Rachel Lynch (Canelo) Out Now

They can buy everything except the truth. Each week, they come to lie on her couch. Carrie, Henry and Grace. They don’t know one another, but Dr Alex knows them all too well. She listens as they reveal their dirtiest little secrets. Then a murderer strikes in their elite neighbourhood. Could her clients hold the answers? As a psychologist, she knows that anyone can be a killer if they’re pushed hard enough. But only some can get away with it.

Rachel Lynch can be found on X at @r_lynchcrime. She can also be found on Facebook.

 

A.A. Chaudhuri on the Fascination of Secrets and Lies between Friends and Family

As a psychological thriller writer, I love delving into the mindsets and motivations of my characters - what makes them tick and do the things they do - while setting this against everyday set-ups we can all relate to, as readers. Whether that be the workplace, on holiday, a marriage, or indeed in the context of a family or friendship scenario. It’s this close to the bone feeling that makes the genre so compelling for me, because we can all picture ourselves in a given situation, while the darker traits of human nature psychological thrillers tend to explore are all ones that we have the potential to fall foul of, as fallible human beings. Secrets and lies are a good example of this. At some point in our lives, all of us will have held a secret or told a lie, however big or small. It’s human nature. Secrets and lies permeate every level of society and in thrillers they tend to relate to something bad or unsavoury because of course this is what thriller fiction is about. It would be very bland and dull otherwise! Readers want to be intrigued, to feel on edge, to feel the tension, conflict and sense of dread and unease between characters as they turn the pages, so what better than a juicy secret to achieve this and keep them gripped? And when such secrets and lies exist between family and friends it can ramp up that intrigue and suspense we want from our thrillers that much more because we, as readers, know the ultimate reveal and impact is going to be huge and potentially very destructive. 

In my latest psychological thriller, The Final Party, three couples gather in a luxury villa high in the hills above the glamorous town of Sorrento for the seemingly perfect fortieth birthday celebration. But their idyllic week in paradise rapidly descends into the holiday from hell when one of the group starts receiving anonymous text messages threatening to expose a dark secret from their university days, and before long one of them is dead. 

But it is not just the fear of one secret from nearly two decades ago being exposed that is haunting my characters. Each of them is plagued by their own individual secrets which is driving a wedge between them, leading to the mind games and sense of mutual mistrust and unease which typifies the psychological thriller genre. As the plot unfolds the reader is gradually let into such secrets while the characters continue to keep them from each other. The continuing suspense for the reader lies in wondering when such secrets will be found out and what the fall-out will be when that happens. 

But what makes secrets and lies between friends and family so compelling for readers? For me, the answer to that questions lies in the fact that families and friends are our support systems, the people who we trust completely, and who we rely on to be honest with us and have our backs. That being said, when they lie to us and keep potentially harmful secrets from us, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, while the guilt and shame of the person at fault can take its toll and lead to the gradual erosion of such relationships along with escalating feelings of suspicion between them. There is a famous William Blake saying which I feel encapsulates this perfectly: ‘It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.’ What he of course meant by this is that we all expect our enemies to lie to us, but it’s the last thing we expect from our nearest and dearest, and so the potential for us to react in a rash or explosive way is that much greater. 

Guilt and fear are feelings that tend to feature heavily in psychological thrillers, and often stem from a character holding a dark secret they are at pains to keep buried because they fear the consequences of it being exposed, and yet at the same time the guilt and shame they feel for deceiving their loved ones almost destroys them. I think most people can empathise with this. It’s very rare for a person not to feel conflicting emotions of fear and guilt, unless they are a sociopath of course! Again, this is what makes the psychological thriller so relatable and therefore compelling.

Of course, just because a given character has a secret they are tormented by this doesn’t necessarily make them the ultimate culprit in the overall story, but what it does do is give them more complexity and depth as a human being, which I think readers appreciate because we all have light and shade to us, and it’s important to show a character’s redeeming side. It also serves as an effective red herring, particularly in multiple person narratives where the reader is privy to various characters’ secrets and lies, all of them with the potential to be the ultimate culprit in the overall story, and so keeps them guessing until the hopefully explosive denouement. 

It's human nature to be intrigued by secrets and lies when they aren’t your own, especially when they exist between friends and family because the potential outcome is that much more destructive. It’s a theme I’m sure will continue to hold infinite appeal for psychological thriller lovers far and wide until the end of time.

The Final Party by AA Chaudhuri. (Hera Books) Out Now

Six friends. In a luxury villa set high in the hills above the glamorous town of Sorrento, southern Italy, three couples gather for the perfect 40th birthday celebration. One body. Before the week is out, one of them is dead. Countless lies. Their perfect reunion quickly becomes the holiday from hell when one of the group starts receiving anonymous messages, threatening to expose a dark secret from their university days.  As old friendships are tested to the limit, it's clear that what happens in the dark past won't stay buried...

More information about A A Chaudhuri and her books can be ffound on her website. She can also be found on Twitter @AAChudhuri, Facebook. Instagram @a.a.chaudhuri

Families and secrets by Louise Jensen

 

Newly published, ‘The Fall’ is my 8th Psychological thriller, my 11th published book. It’s a story about the unravelling of a seemingly tight-knit family and the shocking, dark secrets they are keeping from each other.

The book opens with Kate Granger feeling like the luckiest woman alive at her surprise birthday party that she is sharing with her twin sister, Beth. Just hours later her teenage daughter, Caily, is found unconscious under a bridge, miles away from where she should have been at school. 

The police, who don’t believe it was an accident, question Caily’s family and it soon becomes apparent that not everyone in the family was where they claimed to be at the time of her fall, nor who they claimed to be with. While the investigation takes place Caily should be safe in hospital but not everyone wants her to wake up. Someone is desperate to protect the truth and it isn’t just Caily’s life that is in danger.

From the moment I thought of the concept I knew that Caily and her cousin Tegan would be central to the plot. The relationship between cousins is one I’ve wanted to write about for a long time. 

Growing up, my cousins were an integral part of my childhood. They, along with my sister, feature in many of my happiest childhood memories. Then, life seemed less complicated for us growing up, than it is today for young people now. In a time before the internet, smartphones and social media, our world may have seemed a lot smaller but was, perhaps, in a way, larger as we had more freedom to play outside. Everywhere was deemed safter than it is today, perhaps because it was, perhaps because we didn’t have the constant stream of bad news that we do now giving rise to that low-level fear many of us carry without being entirely sure why.

I wanted to give Caily and Tegan the same sense of freedom that I had and this was made possible by the farm they live on. Although during the book it has, in parts, a claustrophobic, chilling feel, they were free to roam and play in the vast open space. Not knowing of course, then, that, for years, there had been somebody watching them all along…

The relationship between cousins is, I think, unique. Both family and friends the bond is a strong one. They are confidants, keepers of secrets. Someone who understands because their family history is entwined with yours. It’s been really interesting to unpick the Granger family dynamics, not only between Tegan and Caily but also their parents and Grandparents.

To explore how far Caily and Tegan would go to protect one another.

I don’t see my cousins nearly as much as I’d like to anymore but if any one of them needed me I’d be there in a heartbeat. But that would be another story…

The Fall by Louise Jensen (Harper Collins) Out Now 

She promised not to tell. They made sure she couldn't... At her surprise 40th birthday party, Kate Granger feels like the luckiest woman in the world but just hours later her fifteen-year-old daughter, Caily, is found unconscious underneath a bridge when she should have been at school. Now, Caily lies comatose in her hospital bed, and the police don't believe it was an accident. As the investigation progresses, it soon becomes clear that not everyone in the family was where they claimed to be at the time of her fall. Caily should be safe in hospital but not everyone wants her to wake up. Someone is desperate to protect the truth and it isn't just Caily's life that is in danger. Because some secrets are worth killing for...

More information about Louise Jensen and her books can be found on her website. You can also find her on Twitter @Fab_fiction, on Instagram @fabricating_fiction and on Facebook.

For The thrillers That Will Mess With Your Head by Liz Lawler

 

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith was the first psychological thriller I ever read. The plot was utterly brilliant. Two men meet on a train, and by the end of their journey they have formed a twisted plan to swap murders. They can’t possibly get caught for their actions, because they are complete strangers to their intended victims. There is only one problem with their plan. Only one of them is a psychopath. This was not a whodunit, but about motivations in the mind of a killer.

It was probably ten years later before I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s take on the story. My dad didn’t read at all, he left school when he was ten and a half, and he wanted me to see this great film. I remember telling him I’d read the book, and him replying, ‘I bet you wish you’d known there was a film.’ Like it was a hardship for me to have read it when I could have just watched it.

Patricia Highsmith put me on the road to reading every other type of thriller story thereafter. My interest never waned. I think it’s the satisfaction of seeing all the clues comes together that keeps me glued this genre. After the thrill of chasing for the conclusion in my mind. I think I would have enjoyed being a detective. And in fact wanted to join the police when I was 18. My mum said I was too short. That I had to be five foot four. But even if I were half an inch taller, becoming a police officer was never on the cards. My mum had other plans for me. I was to be a nurse.

She was right, of course. I was a natural from day one. I found it easy to communicate with patients and put them at their ease. Nursing is a very hands on job and the last thing a patient needs is to feel self-conscious. As one minute you’re looking at their face, the next you’re inspecting their bottom. As that then causes problems. You don’t want someone with a broken hip, or worse, trying to cover up their privates or refusing to use a bedpan. 

So nursing was then my career and for many years it’s what I did.

Until one day after working a night shift, I came home intending only to take the children to school and myself then to bed, I picked up a pen and notebook and began writing a story. I don’t know what triggered it. Nothing in particular stands out from that night. It was a normal night for accident and emergency. I just remember feeling edgy, and having this need to write. Once started it then became impossible to stop. I was drawn in by characters I was creating and feeling an excitement building from where this plot was going. Weeks passed and every notepad I possessed had been filled in. Until one day it was finally finished. When I knew there was nothing more to be said. There was only one thing then left to do, and that was to read it.

It was after doing this when writing truly began for me. I enjoyed the story. It was bizarre, because even knowing what was to happen, I was feeling a tension and was wanting to get to the end to see everything turn out all right.

So I look back and ask myself how did it ever begin? Was it my love of reading that started it? Or was it something deeper that scratched at the surface? Repressed feelings? Or from a study of human nature? Nursing exposes you to traumatic events. Severe injuries, death, suicide and suffering. To characters with psychological complexities. Why does that woman stay with him? Why keep letting him beat her up? Why is that teenager self-harming? Why won’t that child sit with her mummy? Why did that lad kick another lad’s head?

With every patient you end up taking a little bit of their story away with you. Because you care and you feel and because what happened is real. I think one possibility, is that having stored away lots of memories, my mind decided to have a sort out. To free up some space in the hard drive. To save it from a crash.

The Silent Mother by Liz Lawler (Bookoutre) Out Now

‘I’m so very sorry. But your son is dead.’ As I hear the words every mother dreads my pulse races and I go cold. But even as my world turns upside down I know the things I’m being told just don’t add up. I have to find out what really happened the night my beautiful boy died… The police tell me it was a tragedy no one could have prevented. But then they reveal the terrible things Tom was keeping from me. The person they describe is nothing like the decent, honest man I raised. Newly qualified as a doctor, Tom had such a bright future ahead of him. A mother knows her own child. And I’m determined to prove my son’s innocence. It’s the last thing I will ever be able to do for him. So I have come to the city where he lived and moved into his empty flat under a different name. When I discover his diary, it becomes clear his death wasn’t an accident. And as I get to know Tom’s friends and neighbours I realise they’re all keeping secrets. But as I get closer to the truth, I realise my life is in danger too…

You can find follow her on Twitter @AuthorLizLawler

Author Bio-

Liz Lawler grew up sharing pants, socks, occasionally a toothbrush, sleeping four to a bed. Born in Chatham and partly raised in Dublin, she is one of fourteen children. She spent over twenty years as a nurse and has since fitted in working as a flight attendant, a general manager of a five star hotel, and is now working with trains. She became an author in 2017 when her debut novel Don’t Wake Up was published by Twenty7. 

Could You Commit a Murder? by Lauren North

For the vast majority of us the answer to this question is of course NO! And yet we never really know how we’re going to react when we find ourselves in the worst moments of our lives, do we?

Just for a minute, imagine the scenario – your boyfriend of seven years is going to propose. You’ve seen the ring hidden in his sock drawer. A big fat diamond you can’t wait for people to see on your finger. He’s been acting quiet and secretive for weeks. And so when he suggests you take a day off work and a walk along the remote cliff tops you both love so much, you know what’s coming. You’re so sure in fact that you let slip to your friends, revelling in the excited squeals over bottles of Prosecco on a Friday night. Your mum is already scrolling Google for suitable wedding venues and has a bottle of champagne hidden in the back of her fridge for when you stop by afterwards to show off the ring. 

The day arrives and it’s overcast, the path along the cliff top blustery and deserted, and when you reach the spot where you shared your very first kiss together, and your boyfriend stops and turns to take in the views of the steal-grey sea and distant ships, you know the moment has come at last. All those years of patience, all those times sat on hard wooden pews watching your friends say, ‘I do’ and pretending not to mind, and finally it’s here – your turn. 

You can’t stop the smile stretching across your face as he turns to you, eyes wide with emotion. But then it all goes wrong. The words that leave his mouth, aren’t, ‘will you marry me?’ they’re, ‘I’m sorry, it’s over.’ He’s in love with someone else. He’s going to propose to someone else. The big fat diamond you found in the sock drawer is for someone else. 

The rage is hot and quick, scorching through your blood. You feel the humiliation burn on your face. All the friends you’ll have to tell, your family too. All those looks of pity from your smug married friends. Oh how wrong you got it. He must see something in your face because he takes a step back, and suddenly he’s close to the edge of the cliff and there’s no one else for miles, and you see in that moment of blinding fury another story. Not the jilted girlfriend, but the grieving fiancée, an unspeakable tragedy after a proposal. Who would know? And all it would take is one shove, one burst of that anger pumping through you. 

Are you still sure you’re not capable of murder? 

Perhaps your answer is still no, and that’s fair enough. But maybe we all have a button somewhere deep inside us, a situation where we’ll find ourselves crossing that line. And let’s not forget that I haven’t even mentioned children yet – that fierce love we have for them, and how far we’d go to protect them. 

It really is impossible to know how anyone will react when their worst moment happens. And there lies the beauty of psychology and the enduring popularity of psychological thrillers. Authors who take the ordinary people, the loving girlfriend, the two point four, the relatable, and throw them into the unimaginable. 

As an author, I’m no different. In my latest novel Safe At Home, anxious mother, Anna, leaves her 11-year old child home alone. Why? Because at some point we have to take that step, we have to give that independence, and it’s only twenty minutes and the village really is very safe. But twenty minutes becomes five hours when a lorry turns over on the road ahead of Anna and she’s stuck. 

It’s all so easy to imagine, isn’t it? 

And now as the author I take it one step further and something terrible happens to Anna’s daughter in that time. There’s mud on the kitchen floor. Someone has been in the house. But Anna’s daughter won’t say a word. So just how far will Anna have to go to find the truth and keep her daughter safe? How far would you go?

Thankfully, those worst moments, that line we never want to cross, is a rare thing indeed, which is another reason why so many readers are drawn into the fictional worlds of psychological thrillers and their characters just like us. 

Safe At Home by Lauren North (Transworld Publishers) Out Now. 

What if you left your child alone, and something terrible happened? Anna James is an anxious mother. So when she has to leave eleven-year-old Harrie home alone one evening, she can't stop worrying about her daughter. But nothing bad ever happens in the sleepy village of Barton St Martin. Except something goes wrong that night, and Anna returns to find Harrie with bruises she won't explain. The next morning a local businessman is reported missing and the village is sparking with gossip. Anna is convinced there's a connection and that Harrie is in trouble. But how can she protect her daughter if she doesn't know where the danger is coming from?

You can find more information about her and her books on her website and you can also follow her on Twitter @Lauren_C_North

Why I chose to write my debut psychological thriller SHE’S MINE in the first person. By A.A. Chaudhuri

She’s Mine, my debut psychological thriller with Hera Books, is my first foray into writing in the first person, having used the third person narrative for my Kramer & Carver legal thriller series. 

I always enjoy exploring the mindsets of my characters – who and what is motivating them to behave in the way they do. Even with The Scribe and The Abduction, I made a conscious effort to do this, i.e., not just take my readers on a straightforward mission to unearth and track down the culprits alongside my lead protagonists, but also allow them to see things through the culprits’ eyes, just because I feel this adds substance to the story, enabling readers to connect with and relate to all of the characters on a deeper level; even induce them to feel some level of sympathy for the wrongdoers, having been offered an insight into their inner turmoil and often painful backstories. 

There is no hard and fast rule that psychological thrillers should be written in the first person, however, just because the genre is primarily focussed on the characters’ states of mind. Least of all the first-person present, which is what I chose to do with She’s Mine. So long as the novel contains key elements of the genre – the lead character perhaps having a dark secret or flaw which makes them potentially unreliable – it is of course perfectly possible to effectively portray them within a framework of disquiet and mystery, as is the typical mood of this genre, through the third person narrative.

Having said that, I chose not to do this with She’s Mine, principally because I felt the crux of my novel, which centres on a mother’s (Christine Donovan) grief for her missing child, and the ensuing dark and twisty turn of events that swiftly unravel after she receives a note revealing her daughter is not dead, along with the pervading sense of unease, mistrust and tension that exists between her and other characters, called for a more personal approach. Christine’s guilt for her neglect, but more so revolving around a secret she feels contributed to her child’s disappearance, also lies at the heart of the novel, and so I felt it imperative to see things through her unique perspective, and that of those closest to her, so as to give the reader a deeper and more profound insight into the excruciating pain and turmoil she is forced to endure day after day, as well as the first-hand effect her behaviour has had on others. I didn’t feel this could be conveyed as powerfully via the third person narrative which, by definition, is more detached and reliant on the author’s description of a character’s behaviour and speech rather than via said character’s natural stream of thought. Moreover, although readers may, understandably, blame Christine for losing her child owing to her past misdeeds, it was crucial to me that they should also feel some compassion for her, and I found the first-person narrative – hearing her voice, her suffering in their heads – to be a more effective way of achieving this. 

Obviously one can describe a character’s pain and emotions through the third person narrative, but there is always a danger of it coming across as contrived and lacking in depth and heart, the author sometimes ‘telling’ too much of the story, rather than ‘showing’ it through a character’s own distinct voice and actions which, admittedly, can be deceptive because we as readers don’t know if what he or she is saying can be trusted. But then again, isn’t that the point of the psychological thriller genre? To be unsure of what you are being told is the truth, thereby heightening the intrigue on the part of the reader and their impetus to keep turning the pages?

I think that fans of psychological thrillers rather enjoy the feeling of being deceived by the author – the sense that they’re not being given the whole story but rather a skewered version of the truth. This uncertainty is what adds to the overall experience and addictive nature of the genre, and I think this can often be better achieved by only seeing events through the eyes of a particular character at any given moment.

Writing in the first person also allowed me to connect more deeply with my characters even though I, unlike my readers, know the outcome of the story and what my characters are hiding. With She’s Mine, I became so invested in my characters, I really felt like I was living every moment with them, feeling their pain and inner turmoil, which was important given the subject matter of a lost child; something that was often hard to write about being a mother myself.

Similarly, because the events of the book move along fairly swiftly, constantly switching between different characters’ viewpoints, I chose to write in the first person ‘present tense’ with a view to ramping up the pace even further, as well as intensifying the prevailing sense of claustrophobia and uncertainty my characters operate in.

I really enjoyed my first experience of writing in the first person and feel sure it won’t be my last.

She’s Mine is published by Hera Books in e-book on 18th August and paperback on 26th August:

Her missing daughter was just the start of the nightmare. Twenty years ago, Christine Donovan took a call she should have ignored while shopping. In those few seconds while her back was turned her toddler, Heidi, was kidnapped. She’s never been seen again. Despite having two other children with husband Greg, Christine remains guilt-stricken that her neglect caused her child to be stolen, while haunted by a secret that consumes her. Just as she takes measures to finally heal, a note is posted through her door, with the words she has always longed to hear: Heidi isn’t dead. Christine might finally get the answers she craves - but what she doesn’t know is that finding her daughter will uncover dark secrets close to home. In seeking the truth, Christine might destroy everything that she loves … so how far is she willing to go to find Heidi?

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/3ua6Oxa

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3ffj4rM

Apple: https://apple.co/3yyqe2a

When Fact Feeds into Fiction by Claire Allan

 

I was signing copies of my first psychological thriller when a fellow author – a woman I had first met when she taught a creative writing class at my secondary school – congratulated me.

‘I’ve always wondered why you didn’t write crime novels,’ she said. ‘You have a wealth of material in your head already. It’s a natural fit for you,’ she said. And she was right. I’d spent seventeen years as a staff reporter working on the largest local paper in Northern Ireland, the Derry Journal. 

In the course of my journalism career I had covered more court sessions than I could count. I’d listened to evidence and pleas on cases ranging from petty shoplifting, to rape and murder. I’d even spent a considerable amount of time listening to the greatest legal minds in the UK as they poured over hours of evidence during the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday.

An occasion on which I’d stood on a bleak country road and noticed the blood of an attempted murder victim mixing with the mud and rain remains indelibly inked into my memory.

I can still conjure the smell in the air, the bitter cold temperature, the feeling that something very bad had happened at that spot.

And yet, despite this extensive internal library of experience –, writing crime fiction had held no appeal to me. 

Perhaps it was the case that while I was working full time as a journalist, and my day job gave me that up close and personal look at the darker side of lives. When I went home each day I needed to switch off so I found my relief in writing ‘women’s fiction’. 

I wrote about love, friendship, families and happy ever afters – and I enjoyed a degree of success with that. I had eight novels published with Irish publishing house Poolbeg Press – and I was a multiple Irish Times bestseller.

So what changed?

First of all, I decided to take voluntary redundancy from journalism to try and concentrate on my writing career. That gave me the freedom of headspace.

The second factor, and this one was definitely unplanned, was that an editor challenged me ‘to unleash my dark side’, stating that she thought I could definitely pull off a thriller.

I walked away from that meeting feeling quite sure she was wrong, but I decided to give it a go anyway. Before long, I had written Her Name Was Rose and found, to my great surprise, that I enjoyed every second of it. I felt as if I had been given permission to try something new, something that was beyond my fiction-writing comfort zone.

Yes, it was scary – but it was also exhilarating. I found writing the threads of a thriller, drawing them all together and adding in some twists for good measure to be immensely satisfying.

And more than that, there were editors out there who agreed that I was actually quite good at it. So I found myself, quite unexpectedly, with a book deal to write two thrillers and with a whole new direction in my career.

Of course I don’t, and would never, take the real life experiences of the victims of crime who had shared their stories with me and weave them into my books. I wouldn’t repackage someone’s trauma as entertainment, but I have realised that the hours I have spent talking to real life victims of crime – hearing their stories, absorbing their feelings, witnessing what crime can do to a person, to a family and to a community – has become my most invaluable resource as a writer. It’s what gives me the ability to write with empathy and to get inside of the mind of my characters.

Getting to the heart of character is central to my books. It’s the part of writing that I love the most and have always loved the most. Telling the stories of the humans behind the headlines was always my favourite thing about journalism. I liked to think that I gave a voice to people who would not otherwise have had one – and that feeds into my crime writing style and indeed what drives me to write in this genre.

It’s five years since I left journalism behind, and three years since my first thriller was released. I don’t think the second would have happened without the first. 

The experiences and feelings I’d been witness to in the needed room to breathe and there needed to be distance between real life and fiction.

I hope I’ve struck that balance now – although centring my new novel, Ask No Questions, around a journalist will no doubt draw comparisons between my real life past and my fiction-writing career. For now, I’m more than happy to leave to the journalism to my fearless protagonist Ingrid Devlin, but I’m thankful for the career that showed me all the light and shade that exists within our society.

Ask No Questions by Claire Allan (HarperCollins) Out Now

Not all secrets are meant to come out...Twenty-five years ago, on Halloween night, eight-year-old Kelly Doherty went missing while out trick or treating with friends. Her body was found three days later, floating face down, on the banks of the Creggan Reservoir by two of her young classmates. It was a crime that rocked Derry to the core. Journalist Ingrid Devlin is investigating - but someone doesn't want her to know the truth. As she digs further, Ingrid starts to realise that the Doherty family are not as they seem. But will she expose what really happened that night before it's too late?

You can follow Claire Allan on Twitter @ClaireAllan

The inspiration behind Cabin Fever – Scandi Noir at its most chilling by Alex Dahl

 

Cabin Fever tells the story of experienced psychotherapist, Kristina Moss, and her troubled client, Leah Iverson, a novelist, whose lives collide with devastating consequences, making them both come entirely undone.

Kristina almost has it all- a highly successful career in spite of a tragic past, a doting, impressive husband- prime minister candidate Eirik, and a lovely home in Oslo’s most exclusive neighborhood. Still, she yearns for children and struggles with the aftermath of several failed fertility treatments. She is also grieving the death of her best friend, Elisabeth, who overdosed on heroin months before, in spite of Kristina’s continued efforts to save her over several years. 

Leah Iverson lives a darker life, though she has found success as a novelist. Her book, Nobody, was a big bestseller, and chronicled Leah’s abusive and violent marriage and subsequent fight for survival and a life worth living. To fight her demons, which include self-harming and depression, Leah seeks therapy with Dr. Moss, and a strong therapeutic bond is formed. Leah makes substantial progress in therapy, but simultaneously develops a deep fascination, and ultimately obsession, with controlled, enigmatic Kristina… 

When Leah shows up to their Friday afternoon session bruised and hysterical, begging Kristina to come to her cabin so she can tell her the truth, Kristina comes up against a hard professional boundary- the therapy room is the only space therapists and clients meet. But when Leah fails to turn up to their next session and Kristina discovers that Leah is 13 weeks pregnant, she goes to Leah’s apartment, where she surprisingly encounters her violent ex-husband, Anton. Could it be that Leah has lied to her? Or is she in grave danger? 

Heartbroken, hurt and lonely, Leah has retreated to her remote cabin in Telemark’s dense forests where, unable to write her anticipated follow-up to Nobody, Leah begins to write to Kristina, and that’s when the words finally begin to flow…

When the police refuse to go to Telemark to make sure Leah is okay, Kristina goes to find her client, but the cabin is empty and Kristina sustains a terrible injury which leads to her being trapped in the primitive cabin, with nothing but Leah’s written confession for company. 

I’m a big believer in therapy. Huge, in fact. Who wouldn’t benefit from developing the insight into one’s own psyche? The more aware we become, the more a world of choice opens up. Goodbye knee-jerk reactions, goodbye repeat and destructive patterns, goodbye ego consciousness, goodbye lack of boundaries. It feels amazing to develop awareness around who we are, and why, as well as the tools to make active choices in our relationships and lives. I came to therapy because I had no choice. Floored by panic attacks and depression, I sensed that this was serious and not something I could solve with my usual methods of talking things through with some girlfriends with wine. Things I’d carried for a long time, had suddenly become too heavy and erupted to the surface with explosive force. The life I’d built, which on the surface might have looked fabulous, felt like it crumbled to pieces. 

My therapist, randomly found on a Google search, turned out to be deeply empathetic and able to hold the mirror into which I finally had to look, with the steadiest of hands. We developed a strong therapeutic bond and it took me some time to realize that it was within this bond itself that the true healing began. It wasn’t what I said, it was that I could say anything at all, no matter how dark or scary or difficult, and she could take it, and hold it, that made a difference. 

And yet, as a writer of psychological thrillers, one can’t turn off the part of the brain that scours absolutely everything in life for potential inspiration for a thriller. Everything- even therapy. Especially therapy. How wonderfully disturbing, really, to think about how we hand over the most vulnerable and precious parts of ourselves- our minds- to the care of someone about whom we know essentially nothing. So, what if they were unhinged and profoundly disturbed themselves? Or kept dangerous secrets or harbored repressed traumas that may affect their professional abilities? Thus Cabin Fever was born.

I created Dr Kristina Moss as a controlled, successful woman with a tragic past, and Leah Iverson as the catalyst for bringing everything to the surface. I used the analogy of the supernova, the celestial phenomenon of one star stealing energy from another, bringing spectacular destruction to both. Cabin Fever chronicles the devastating aftermath of trauma, and explores core themes such as obsession and betrayal.

“You have told me nothing about yourself, and yet I know- dare I say- everything. Even things you yourself don’t know.

‘Cabin Fever’ by Alex Dahl is published by Head of Zeus on 8th July at £18.99

Alone and isolated in a vast Scandinavian forest, a therapist begins to read her client's novel manuscript, only to discover the main character is terrifyingly familiar...  You are her therapist. Kristina is a successful therapist in central Oslo. She spends her days helping clients navigate their lives with a cool professionalism that has got her to the top.She is your client. But when her client Leah, a successful novelist, arrives at her office clearly distressed, begging Kristina to come to her remote cabin in the woods, she feels the balance begin to slip.But out here in the woods. When Leah fails to turn up to her next two sessions, Kristina reluctantly heads out into the wilderness to find her.Nothing is as it seems. Alone and isolated, Kristina finds Leah's unfinished manuscript, and as she reads she realises the main character is terrifyingly familiar...

You can find her on Twitter @alexdahlauthor

Memories and Secrets by Susi Holliday

 

Anyone who has read any of my books will know by now that I don’t stick to a formula. I’ve gone from police procedurals to serial killers at Christmas, to ghosts mixed with coercive control, to psychotic females on the Trans-Siberian Express – and now to a bunch of gleefully unlikable strangers trapped on an island with a scarily plausible memory-tracking device pinned behind their ears.

 Why? Because this is how I read.

When I first started writing seriously back in 2011, I battled for a long time with myself on what I was going to write. I knew I wanted to be traditionally published, and as a voracious reader of crime, horror, speculative fiction and even what’s annoyingly called “women’s fiction”, I was a bit torn. OK, not that torn. I knew my first book was going to be dark, and it’s so dark, I called it Black Wood. I settled on the story after realising that I needed to write about something I knew – and I based it on an even that happened to me as a child. All of my books since then have contained elements of things I know, merged with things I wanted to know – this is what research is for, after all.

But fast forward to Book 7 (how did that happen?!) and I’ve gone back to childhood again. Not mine, specifically. But the book opens with a couple of childhood friends – or seemingly so – who’ve met while holidaying on an island and formed an immediate strong bond. A bond that is cemented when something awful happens that only the two of them know about. 

Their little secret.

I’m fascinated by secrets, as I think all psychological thriller writers are. And I’m also fascinated by the way that children can be manipulated into keeping secrets, while their brains remain both susceptible and trusting. I’m also interested in childhood friendships, and how, without the shackles of “adulting” they can be formed quickly, intensely and cause utter devastation when they end, only for the memories to slowly fade as new friendships come along to replace them.

I can still remember the first friend that I “lost” as a child. She was in my Primary 1 class and her name was Vicky. She had neat blonde hair, to my hard-to-manage brunette, and she was fun. Other than that, I remember nothing about her – apart from the sheer devastation I felt when her family moved away and she was no longer my friend. But being five, I got over it.

There were others.

Every time I went on holiday with my parents, I met a new best friend. One of these friends was called Melanie, and my parents became friendly with hers, so we arranged to meet up back home. And we did. They lived about an hour or so from us, but in Scotland in the 80s, that seemed like a million miles away. We went to visit them, they came to visit us. But then it trickled off – obviously because it wasn’t really a priority for either set of parents. And while I was sad for a while, again, I moved on.

But as I was planning The Last Resort, I started thinking about these friends, and others. These people who are so incredibly important one minute, and forgotten the next. I realised I could barely remember a thing about these girls, but I remember playing with them, and having fun with them, and I remember that Melanie had short dark hair, styled page-boy-esque like mine was for a while. We were both victims of that unfortunate trend. I started thinking about memories, and what sticks with you from a young age… and what doesn’t. When I ask my parents about certain things that I am sure happened, they have different recollections. I often wonder if Vicky or Melanie remember me; if they even remember my name. Memory is such a fallible thing, which is why I wanted to create a device in my story for harvesting memories. For bringing those long-lost friendships back to the surface.

What if not everyone has such fleeting memories of their childhood friends?

For all I know, they could have been searching for me for years… 

 The Last Resort by Susi Holliday (Published by Thomas & Mercer) Out 1 December 2020

When Amelia is invited to an all-expenses-paid retreat on a private island, the mysterious offer is too good to refuse. Along with six other strangers, she’s told they’re here to test a brand-new product for Timeo Technologies. But the guests’ excitement soon turns to terror when the real reason for their summons becomes clear.  Each guest has a guilty secret. And when they’re all forced to wear a memory-tracking device that reveals their dark and shameful deeds to their fellow guests, there’s no hiding from the past. This is no luxury retreat—it’s a trap they can’t get out of.  As the clock counts down to the lavish end-of-day party they’ve been promised, injuries and in-fighting split the group. But with no escape from the island—or the other guests’ most shocking secrets—Amelia begins to suspect that her only hope for survival is to be the last one standing. Can she confront her own dark past to uncover the truth—before it’s too late to get out?

Thrillers, Crime Novels, and Neuroscience Psychology

“How much will it hurt tonight, and when will the itching drive me crazy?” I said. I was lying on my stomach, trying to stay very still, while my doctor stitched up my right shoulder blade. I have reached the age where my skin is occasionally described as “suspicious”.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” my doctor said. “It might itch in a week.”

“Have you ever had stitches?” I said, soaking up every sensation, committing them to memory because they may come in handy for a story. Writers are an odd bunch, aren’t we?

“No, I never have,” she said.

That night, it felt like invisible little knives jabbing my shoulder at an irregular rhythm. Of course, it hurt! I had two layers of stitches, deep and superficial. Even as the prickly and throbbing pain under my skin drove me nuts, I thought it was funny how badly my doctor had misled me. She hadn’t lied to me. She was a conscientious doctor. She just didn’t know what it felt like.

Should doctors have to have stitches before they give them? Of course not; that’s cruel. Should doctors have to undergo surgery or take drugs before they perform or prescribe? No, that would be monstrous. (It wouldn’t even necessarily be valuable because the same drug has different effects on a genetically-varied population.)

But these questions dig deeper into the differing perspectives of reality and how they can affect psychiatric diagnosis and prescription. Psychotropic drugs are both overprescribed and underprescribed. They have saved lives and ruined lives. They are still prescribed mostly as one-size-fits-all, but should they be? The brain is complex, and variation rules.

Crime novels and thrillers are especially heavy on neuroscience psychology. The genre is rife with diagnosis and drugs (legal and illegal), serial killers and psychopaths, and relatable, stable people who are simply pushed too far. 

We all have the potential for violence within us; it’s a defense mechanism for survival. Neurologist Robert Burton explains that, even after 30 years of searching for patterns, psychiatrists and psychologists cannot predict who will commit murder, which is unsettling, but also a great relief. Screening populations for violence sounds like a frightening dystopian novel. (Sadly, it’s not. Police use of AI and facial recognition is all over the news.)

Psychiatric issues are at the gooey center of so many novels in the genre: Shutter Island (Dennis Lehane), The Girl on The Train (Paula Hawkins), Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn), American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis), The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides), and The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith). Internal struggles with PTSD, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, obsession, and psychopathy drive plots and characters.

Those of us who don’t have psychiatric issues still have differing perceptions of reality and psychological quirks. Some of us buy into conspiracies. Others are awake in the middle of the night, worried sick over inconsequential things. Some are dependent on their evening glass of wine or get pissy if they don’t exercise. Many of us replay conversations over and over, thinking, I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid.

Some of us embrace our psychological quirks; others don’t. That’s another nuance of the topic. What are we comfortable exposing about ourselves, and what do we feel compelled to keep secret?

In She Lies Close, Grace Wright is the secretive type. She has anxiety and insomnia, she takes meds for ADHD, and her meds exacerbate her insomnia, which leads to other troubling behaviors. She is worried about losing custody of her kids, so she keeps a lot of secrets.

In this dark psychological thriller, recently divorced Grace Wright moves her two small children into a new house, hoping to start a new life, longing to reset her crippling insomnia, but finds out she’s moved in next door to the only suspect in the kidnapping of five-year-old Ava Boone. Grace becomes obsessed with her menacing neighbor and the family of the missing little girl, and then a body turns up...

She Lies Close has already gathered strong early praise, with New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica declaring it as "an explosive, darkly comedic psychological thriller with one of the most memorable protagonists I’ve read" and USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan describing it as a “masterclass in voice, a psychological tour de force, and one of the most original stories I've ever read.”

She Lies Close is by Sharon Doering (Published by Titan Books)

Five-year-old Ava Boone has been missing for six months. There have been no leads, no arrests, no witnesses. The only suspect was quiet, middle-aged Leland Ernest. And Grace Wright has just bought the house next door. Recently divorced, Grace uprooted her two small children to start again and hopes the move will reset her crippling insomnia. But now she understands bargain-price for her beautiful new house. With whispered neighborhood gossip and increasingly sleepless nights, Grace develops a fierce obsession with Leland and the safety of her children. Could she really be living next door to a child-kidnapper? A murderer? With reality and dream blurring more each day, Grace desperately pursues the truth - following Ava's family, demanding answers from the police - and then a body is discovered...

She Lies Close is available now in the UK and releases on November 10 in the US and Canada.