Thank you Sophie for taking the time to answer a few questions about your writing and your new book The Monogram Murders - a new Poirot novel!
If you'd like to learn more abour Sophie click here and go to her site!
And don't forget to reserve your copy with us today!
Your style of writing is a bit darker than Christie's. Even so, has she influenced your crime writing? If so, how?
Christie has been a huge influence on me - probably the hugest, though Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine comes a close second. Christie understood that the main thing a writer has to do is grip readers until the end of the story. In the case of a mystery novel, readers should ideally become increasingly desperate to hear the solution to the puzzle. Christie was better at cranking up the suspense and creating that desperation to find out than any other writer. I was very influenced by her at a young age, and from her I picked up the idea that 'Who killed this dead person?' is not sufficient, not mysterious enough as a driver for a story - because let's face it, someone killed the victim, and the chances are they did it because they didn't like them very much, so ideally you need more mysteriousness than that: something hookier, more high-octane and more peculiar - something to make readers shake their heads in total and utter intrigued bewilderment because it simply looks impossible - like there being no murder suspects because everyone present is apparently dead (And Then There Were None). I think it's a direct result of Agatha Christie's influence that I always look for apparently-impossible opening scenarios for my novels. I also think it's true to life, and therefore cathartic to write and read about. I often find myself in real life thinking, 'No. No, that simply cannot be happening.' I think a lot of people must.
You are a successful poet, children's author and mystery novelist; is there any other style of writing you have wanted to tackle and haven't yet?
Not really! There's so much more I want to do in the genres I'm writing in already - that's what I'm focused on for the foreseeable future. Though I do have a great idea for a romantic novel with a twist!
After you finish the new Poirot mystery, do you have any plans for a new Simon Waterhouse & Charlie Zailer mystery?
There's a new Simon & Charlie mystery out in the UK on April 24th: The Telling Error. In America, the next Simon & Charlie novel to be published will be The Carrier, in January 2015 - which is the one before The Telling Error. And I'm just about to start work on a new standalone contemporary psychological thriller, A Game For All The Family.
How long have you have you been thinking about writing a Poirot mystery? And were you trepidations about approaching the Christie estate with your idea?
It would never have occurred to me at all, ever! My agent suggested it, and Agatha Christie's family, estate and publishers were keen to explore the possibility further. Once I started to give it some thought, I realised that an idea I'd had for ages and couldn't make work in a contemporary thriller would work brilliantly as a case for Poirot. From then on, we were all very excited about it! Yes, of course it was scary and daunting, but there's nothing wrong with a little fear-adrenaline every now and then - I actually think it made me write a better book than I would have otherwise.
Why did you choose Poirot as your detective? He is so well known, wouldn't have been easier to write about Superintendent Battle, Tommy & Tuppence or Mr. Quin? Or perhaps a undeveloped character such as Lucy Eislbarrow (4:50 From Paddington)
Poirot and Miss Marple are by far my favourites of Christie's detectives. They're the ones I truly love, so I knew it had to be one of them, and this particular story idea was far better suited to Poirot than to Marple.
Can you give us a hint what the new Poirot is about? Or is it still top secret....
Sorry - still top secret! However, I can reveal that the title of the novel will be revealed on 7 May, and the US jacket will be revealed at the Malice Aforethought festival.
(Amber Here: This interview was back in April before the title and cover art was revealed!)
Christie is called the Queen of Poisons, since she used them often in her mysteries. In your novels do you have a favorite method (or a method you gravitate towards) of murdering your characters? If so why?
Normally in my novels, the precise method of murder is not important at all. Stabbed, shot, poisoned...often it doesn't really matter to the story, and what's far more important is the motive, relationships, lies and truths told. In fact, my latest novel The Telling Error is an exception to that general rule. The murder victim, a controversial blow-hard newspaper columnist, has been killed with a knife but not stabbed. The knife has been stuck to his face, and the combination of the knife and the parcel tape it has been stuck on with have suffocated him. One of the big mysteries in the book is: why, if you wanted to suffocate someone, would you use something as unnecessary as a knife? And if you were determined to kill someone with a knife, then why not stab them? The answers to these questions are absolutely vital to the novel.
Is there any book in the Christie cannon which you wish you wrote first?
I'd have been pretty proud of myself if I'd thought of the solution to Murder on the Orient Express.
Any last words?
My current favourite quote from Dame Agatha: 'A man who dramatises himself is sometimes misjudged...One does not take his sincerities seriously.'
My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2014
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