C.S. O’Cinneide's Blog

C.J. Cooke is the award-winning author of The Boy Who Could See Demons (2012),  critically appraised by The New York Times, The Guardian, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and The New York Review of Books. She is also the author of  I Know My Name, a No. 1 iBooks bestseller. Her latest novel, The Lighthouse Witches, has been nominated for a 2022 Edgar award by the Mystery Writers of America.

Her work has been translated into 32 languages and is often classed as gothic and/or psychological suspense, but she’s not really bothered about genre (Interviewer’s note – And neither should you be!)

You wrote your first book at age seven. What was it about?

Haha. It was a Care Bears-themed collection of little stories with illustrations. Some dark undertones, too. Quite a feat to put a gothic spin on the Care Bears, no? My best work.

Your latest book, The Lighthouse Witches has been described as “witchcraft meets thriller.” Your first novel, The Boy Who Could See Demons, was about, well, a boy who saw demons. Where do you think the Gothic undertones come from in your work?

I’m hesitant to say that the gothic tendency in my work is rooted in childhood trauma, as many a writer of cheery stuff has probably some traumatic stuff lurking in their past. Horror and gothic is where I feel at home.

Do you own a Ouija board?

Ooh, great question – but no, I don’t. I have plenty of (fake) skulls, though, and I used to be really good at tarot.

According to your website, you write about “motherhood, climate change, and trauma.” That’s an interesting trifecta. How might they intersect?

I think they are the primary themes of my daily life. Trying to find a successful way of balancing life with four children and my work – a full-time job and my writing career – has been my main occupation for the last fifteen years. At the same time, I’ve been very interested in the gender politics that motherhood reveals, specifically the range of questions I get asked about being a working parent that never get asked of my husband. The discourse around women’s writing and women’s work is something I’m dedicated to contributing to. Similarly, writing is something I’ve turned to from a very young age as a way of processing trauma. I kept a diary, but looking back, my creative work is more revealing in terms of the things that happened to me, and the things I witnessed as a child, and more broadly I’m intrigued by the work that happens in processing trauma through writing.

Climate change is on my mind, as I’m sure it’s on everyone’s mind, because I’m outraged at how slowly our governments are responding to what is essentially an urgent global crisis of unprecedented human impact.

Growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the Troubles, you are probably familiar with Derry Girls. Do you love that TV show as much as me? If so, were you more of an Erin or an Orla growing up?

Oh, I adore Derry Girls. It is so true to the 1990s too. I swear it holds up a mirror to my own school years. My husband loves it, too – he’s English, and I think there’s an extra layer of hilarity and knowingness offered to those of us who grew up in Northern Ireland.

Your second novel, I Know My Name, a taut psychological thriller, has been optioned for TV. Who do you see playing your main character, Eloise, a woman who washes up on a Greek Island beach with no memory of who she is — leaving her husband, a toddler, and a 12-week-old baby behind? (Interviewer’s note: I’ve been a mother of a toddler and a newborn, and I must say that a Greek Island and amnesia would have been much welcomed at the time)

I love Vanessa Kirby, and her portrait of a bereaved mother in Pieces of Her was astonishingly good. I think she’d make a fantastic Eloise.

You’re an academic as well as a fiction writer. In Shakespeare on Film: Much Ado About Cinema you explore film adaptations of the Bard where his work “has been taken to outer space, downtown Mumbai, and feudal Japan,” just to name a few. Which of these adaptations was your favourite? (And I’m sort of hoping it was the one in outer space.

There was a quartet of BBC TV productions around 2005 that were brilliant – James McAvoy as Macbeth was probably my favourite.

What book is on your bedside table right now?

I have a stack – Burntcoat by Sarah Hall, Slime: A Natural History by Susanne Wedlich, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman, The Night she Disappeared by Lisa Jewell, and The Fell by Sarah Moss.

To find out more about C.J. Cooke and her books go to https://carolynjesscooke.com/

On Wednesday, I got the shock of my life.

I was on my lunch hour, and I picked up my cell phone to find that my Twitter was blowing up. I assumed at first that it was due to one of those tweets where someone says how much they love and appreciate other people and tags a dozen of them. Then everybody who was tagged Likes it, and you all feel a warm rush of camaraderie and twitterphoria and such. But when I scrolled down to see the source of the Likes I found an announcement by CrimeReads about the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award Nominees. That’s nice, I thought, that CrimeReads was kind enough to tag me so I could peruse a list of writers who sell way more books than me. But hey, the idea that CrimeReads thought me worthy enough to tag at all was lovely. I clicked on the link, and that’s when I saw it.

Starr Sign, the second novel in my Candace Starr Crime Series had been nominated for Best Paperback Original.

I gotta admit, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Then I thought it was a mistake. Then I looked to see if my publisher knew about it (they didn’t). I stood up and did a happy dance at my desk. Then I pulled up the tweet again and gave it a resounding Like.

The Edgar Awards are like the Oscars for mystery writers, except the people aren’t as good looking (no offence to my fellow nominees, some of you are stunning, but as a whole we’re no Brangelina). I’m the only Canadian in the adult fiction category dominated by big publishers and big names. I’m a little fish in a huge pond and I’m so grateful and blown away that I get to swim for a while with the whale sharks (which apparently are the largest fish in the ocean, and once again no reflection on my fellow nominees).

The Candace Starr Series follows the antics of a hard-drinking, six-foot-three hitwoman named Candace (don’t call her Candy) Starr. In the first book, The Starr Sting Scale, she teams up with a female cop, Detective Chien-Shiung Malone to solve a murder that Candace may have committed herself. In the second novel, Starr Sign, Candace’s long-lost teenage sister shows up and they go looking for their mother in the Detroit Mob. The first book came out on the eve of the pandemic and the second came out deep in the middle of it. It felt like the only sales I made were to my dad, my best friend, and my dog. And the dog never paid me for it. So, this award nomination means a great deal to me. A real shot in the arm (to add to the two plus booster that I’ve already had).

So, to all you indie writers out there, I say, “Dream Big,” for the tweet that makes you almost throw up is just around the corner.

To the folks at Mystery Writers of America, I say, “Thank you,” from the bottom of my hard-boiled crime writer’s black heart, and I can’t wait to thank you in person in NYC on April 28th at the Awards Banquet (also please note that if you made a mistake it is too late, my husband has already rented a tux)

And to the guy in my creative writing class five years ago, who said, “Do you really think anyone is going to want to read a crime novel about two women?” —-  I say nothing because you are a stupid face.

Wish me luck in April, dear readers!  I’m up against some stiff competition, including C.J. Cooke, the internationally bestselling author of The Lighthouse Witches, who I will be interviewing for my next She Kills Lit blog.

I’ll admit it. Jo Spain had me from the first chapter in her latest thriller, The Perfect Lie, set in Newport, Long Island. Maybe it was the protagonist, Erin Kennedy being an Irish ex-pat. I live with one of those. Which sort of makes me Irish by injection. Or maybe it was Erin’s Bellport Bay apartment with its clear view out to Fire Island, where I spent many an unsupervised (read “debauched”) summer evenings as a teenager.

Or maybe it was because without warning, shortly after Erin asks her cop-husband, Danny how he wants his eggs for breakfast, he jumps to his death off the balcony.

Yeah, I think it was the last one.

Right out of the gate, Spain gets the action rolling. And if having Erin’s husband fly off the balcony before breakfast in Chapter One wasn’t enough of a shocker, fast forward eighteen months later to Chapter Two where Erin’s being charged with her husband’s murder.

What????!!!!!

That’s some serious plot thickening, my friend. Especially when Danny jumped in front of a boatload of witnesses. A whole team of his colleagues had arrived at the door just before he took that final fatal step. Which understandably leaves Erin with a lot of unanswered questions. Why were they there? What did they know about her husband? How do they want their eggs?

As a writer, I was impressed with how Spain was able to manage the varying timelines presented in the book without leaving a reader feeling confused or disoriented. This device, when put into skilled hands is an excellent way to dole out clues and reveals in tantalizing bites. The author leaves you a bread trail from the present to the future and it’s a tasty way to devour a mystery. But in not-so-skilled hands, it is a frustrating fourth dimension free-for-all that makes you want to throw your Kindle at the cat.  The cat was safe while I was in Jo Spain’s capable hands and my e-reader remains intact.

There are many more twists and turns after those two initial chapters. Enough to have kept me hooked to the end even if I hadn’t married a guy able to use the word “banjaxed” in a sentence. My only complaint is that Erin never hangs out on Fire Island, which is just a crying shame in my opinion. But I guess she’s too busy trying to get off her murder charge and figuring out why the hell her husband would rather kiss pavement than have brunch. So, it’s understandable.

A thoroughly enjoyable thriller.

To find out more about Jo Spain and her books, go to her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/JoSpainAuthor

I like novels that tell a story in both the present and the past. After all, so much of what we become is tied up in where we have been. When an author uses this shifting perspective it’s like getting two mysteries for the price of one. In any old book you can read to find out what happens, but in books like this you get to discover the secrets of what already has. It’s a bit like gossip that way and just as juicy if it’s done well. And S.M. Freedman has done it very well in her newest thriller, The Day She Died (Dundurn Press, April 2021).

The book begins with Eve surviving a car crash, just barely. She’s broken just about every bone that matters and suffered a brain injury that makes her more muddled than my Aunt Shirley after her third glass of chianti. But despite this she manages to recover, albeit somewhat damaged, just as she did from her childhood which was a vehicle wreck of a different sort. Eve’s mother didn’t know much about love, other than the tough variety. And despite the wonderfully affirming presence of her grandmother, Button, Eve seems to have spent the better part of her formative years feeling like an unwelcome house guest. She’d have been lost without her best friend, Sara, who had a “laugh like wind chimes in a storm” (p. 56), and Sara’s big brother, Leigh, who set Eve’s tween heart fluttering like a leaf in one. In the present day, Leigh rushes to Eve’s bedside after the car crash, but something appears to have happened between them all those years ago, and perhaps more importantly something happened to Sara. Unfortunately, Eve’s memory isn’t too reliable in recalling either of these events, or perhaps part of her would rather forget. And Leigh doesn’t seem too forthcoming with information. Hmmm.

This book has more twists than a Yoga Spine class. I like to think that I’m pretty good at spotting the big reveals before the author pulls the curtain away, but Freedman staged an unexpected reversal on me more than once in this book. What’s more, there were times I thought the characters were behaving inappropriately and that I, the “experienced reader” had spotted an inconsistency. But later, the character and the behavior were completely explained, and I was left with egg on my face — which I didn’t even mind because the way Freedman pulled off fooling me was just that cool.  The fact that the book is evocatively written in a league that holds its own with literary fiction (think Ashley Audrain’s The Push) didn’t hurt either.

You don’t win Best Debut (Suspense Magazine) for your first book because you don’t know how to hold a reader by the bookmark and squeeze. And in this latest novel, S.M. Freedman does not disappoint. The Day She Died will be a day you won’t soon forget.

To find out more about S.M. Freedman and her novels, go to https://www.smfreedman.com/

In Starr Sign, my second novel in the Candace Starr Crime Series, Candace infiltrates her estranged Detroit mafia family, the Scarpellos, in search of her mother, Angela.

In honour of the fictitious Scarpello clan (and Candace), I bring you some real-life women who made their mark in the male-dominated world of organized crime.

Virginia Hill

Described by Time magazine in 1951 as the “queen of the gangsters’ molls,” Virginia Hill was trustfully employed and regularly knocking boots with a stunning array of hardened American mobsters during the 1930s and 1940s. Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Anthony Accardo, Jake Guzik, Murray Humphreys, Charles Fischetti, Jack Dragna, and Joe Adonis were just some of the mafia made men and bosses who took advantage of her top-notch abilities as a money launderer, cash courier and Mexican heroin trafficker. But Hill is perhaps best known as the main squeeze of Flamingo Casino owner, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who was assassinated in her home in 1947 while she conveniently took an impromptu visit to Paris. Testifying as part of the U.S. Senate’s Kefauver Committee’s investigation into organized crime in 1951, she claimed to have been in her hotel room at the Flamingo Hotel whenever Siegal conducted his underworld business. “I didn’t ever go out. … I had hay fever. I was allergic to the cactus.”

In 1954, Virginia Hill fled to Europe to avoid the IRS and possible further contact with cacti. She died of an apparent drug overdose in Austria in 1965.

Stephanie St. Clair

The head of an organized crime syndicate in Harlem during the prohibition era, Stephanie St. Clair primarily ran a numbers racket that looks suspiciously like the modern-day racket we call the lottery. In 1930, she was reportedly worth $300,000, an amount that could purchase over four million dollars of scratch tickets today. St. Clair used some of her wealth to take out ads in the local newspaper advising Harlem residents of their rights and calling out police brutality of the black community. As an African-American woman at this time in history, she was particularly remarkable for her maintenance of autonomy, never to be controlled by the powerful Italian-American or Jewish family run mafia outfits active in NYC. As prohibition came to an end, Bronx based mob boss Dutch Schultz went to war with her, but she never relented. When Schultz was murdered by a mafia directed hit in 1935, St. Clair infamously sent a telegram to his bed that read “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

Stephanie St. Clair eventually sewed legitimate business enterprises rather than criminal ones. She reaped fairly well, dying quietly as a wealthy woman shortly before her 73rd birthday in 1969.

Griselda Blanco

Depicted by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the biographical crime drama, Cocaine Godmother, Miami-based Griselda Blanco was responsible for the importation of over a billion dollars’ worth of narcotics and up to two thousand murders during her bloody reign.  The first-ever female organized crime billionaire, she counted among her possessions an emerald and gold MAC-10 machine pistol, Eva Perón’s pearls, and a tea set once used by the Queen of England.  Blanco designed special compartments to hide cocaine in women’s underwear and apparently liked a good party where participants didn’t wear any.

In the mid-eighties, Blanco was finally arrested and convicted of drug offenses. While still serving her sentence, she was charged with three murders, but the case fell apart due to a telephone sex scandal involving the star witness and employees of the District Attorney’s office. This was the 1990’s and they hadn’t figured out sexting yet.

In 2004, Griselda Blanco was released from prison and deported to Columbia. Eight years later, she was gunned down there in a butcher’s shop, which given her violent past, has a certain degree of irony to it.

Starr Sign: The Candace Starr Series will be released in Canada on March 9th, 2021, and in the United States and the UK in April of the same year. To find out more about the books by C.S. O’Cinneide, please go here.

REFERENCES

https://themobmuseum.org/blog/top-5-women-of-organized-crime/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Hill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_St._Clair

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/st-clair-stephanie-1886-1969/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_Blanco

Still Life begins with a corpse being pulled out of the Firth of Forth by a group of lobster fishermen. Definitely not your typical catch of the day. The body belongs to a man who was a suspect in his brother’s disappearance and probable murder over a decade ago, but he did a runner when the cops started to close in. Since that time, he has moved to France, served in the foreign legion, joined a jazz band, and got himself killed, all in that order. The last one being arguably the most questionable choice.

But the man in the Forth is not our only mystery. A skeleton is discovered inside a camper van parked in the garage of a suburban home. While the suburbs can be tedious, people rarely die from boredom there. People also rarely fail to notice dead bodies parked between a garden rake and that stationary bicycle they never use. We might ask the homeowner for details, but she’s been recently killed on the motorway while riding her bike. Which just goes to show she should have stuck with a stationary one.

Enter Detective Karen Pirie, a lover of cardamon coffee and justice for the dead.  She’s an expert in solving murders where the trail has gone cold, and soon finds herself hot on the trail of both victim’s killers. Each case has a unique and fascinating path that will lead to secret identities, art forgeries, and the consumption of some exceptional baguette while in France.

This is the sixth book in the Detective Pirie series, penned by the award-winning Val McDermid, a long-time noble among crime fiction royalty. I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t read books 1-5, but I intend to rectify that soon. It’s a testament to the author’s skill that I could come so late to the Detective Pirie game and not find one confusing play.

McDermid is a master at both language and plot, effortlessly switching between the two story lines. Her characters are authentic, multi-layered, and the atmosphere quintessentially Scottish.

“Sometimes in winter the wind was sharp as a sushi knife, cutting straight through streets and alleys. Other times, like tonight, it swirled around and changed direction, doubling back on itself like a burglar casing the streets, looking for an easy target.”  (Still Life, p. 366)

I was captured from the very beginning, worse than a lobster netted in the Forth. Highly recommended.

To find out more about Val McDermid and her books go to https://www.valmcdermid.com/

It’s Halloween and as such my mind turns to the macabre, which when I think about it, isn’t an event exclusively restricted to Oct 31st.  I mean, after all, l wrote a book about a spiritual pilgrimage across Northern Spain and put walking dead people on it (Petra’s Ghost).

But even my deep affection for a dark tale was tested when I researched the escapades of Elizabeth Báthory, the Blood Countess. This woman was a serious psychopath, well known for being the Guinness Book of World Record’s most prolific female serial killer. Many believe that she may have been the true inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, rather than Vlad the Impaler. I don’t think I have to tell you what he was well known for. Let’s just say it wasn’t for his skewering wit.

Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed was born 7 August 1560, in the Kingdom of Hungary to a noble family. The 1500’s was undeniably a great time to be a noble, as the alternative of being a serf totally sucked. It sucked even more if you came into contact with the Countess, but more on that later. Báthory’s childhood was marked by an aunt who instructed her in torture and an Uncle who introduced her to Satanism. The rumour of an illegitimate pregnancy at thirteen makes me wonder if he may have introduced her to more than that. At fifteen years of age, Báthory married Count Ferenc Nadasdy and moved to the Castle of Csejte.  Fairy tale endings did not ensue. Whether it was his death in 1604 that started her on the road to ruin or she was already honing her homicidal tendencies before that, no one knows for sure.

What we do know, is that before she was arrested in 1610, Báthory was purported to have tortured and murdered up to six-hundred people. The vast majority of these victims were young peasant women, who when it came to serfdom that sucked had been dealt the lousiest hand of all.  Báthory tortured her victims in a variety of disgusting ways that I will not fully chronicle here. You are welcome to google them, although I advise doing so on an empty stomach. The Countess enjoyed a fair bit of cannibalism and, if legend is to be believed, a nice relaxing bath in the blood of virgins. Some of those virgins she covered with honey and live ants before their agonizing deaths. Apparently she believed the daily virgin blood bath would keep her young forever. Whatever, her motivations, this woman was not a nice lady.  She makes Vlad the Impaler and Dracula look like an amateur and an undead sissy, respectively.

Báthory might never have been brought to justice if she hadn’t made the mistake of upping her game to include the young daughters of lesser gentry who were sent to her gynaeceum, for a kind of finishing school. As you an imagine, Báthory finished off most of them in her own unique way, and at the time of her arrest they found one last “prey” girl in the castle who she wasn’t finished with yet.

In 1611, the Countess was tried and sentenced to imprisonment in her own castle for life, which ended up not being that long since she died in 1614. Some say her house arrest allowed her to freely roam the castle. Others say she was confined to a bricked-up room with only slits in the walls for food and air. I’d like to think it was the latter, with a good daily ass-kicking by serfs thrown in for good measure. But then again, I always was one for a dark tale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/elizabeth-bathory

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bathorys-torturous-escapades-are-exposed

My mother used to work as a social worker, reuniting adult adoptive children with their natural parents. She’d be the first to tell you that those reunions can be wonderfully rewarding. They can also be a complete flippin’ disaster. That’s the thing with birth families, just like Forest Gump’s iconic box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Denise Mina’s new novel, The Less Dead, opens with Dr. Margo Dunlop waiting to meet Nikki, her birth mother’s sister.  Nikki is almost two hours late, and when she does arrive, she is nothing like what the good doctor thought she was “gonna get.” NIkki is a recovered addict and a former sex worker.  Margo, with her middle-class upbringing, is shocked by almost everything about her, from her dark past to her unfashionable track suit. But she is even more shocked by what Nikki has to tell her. Margo’s birth mother, Susan, also in the sex trade, was murdered soon after Margo was born, and her aunt wants her help to catch the guy who did it. Nikki believes the culprit is being protected through an elaborate conspiracy. Margo thinks that Nikki is quite possibly bonkers.

But as time goes on, Margo discovers there is more to Nikki’s suspicions than she originally thought, and ultimately, more to Nikki. The author takes full advantage of the opportunity to expose and examine class differences in this novel. This is not something new for her. As an author, Mina has never shied away from showing us the unvarnished lives of some of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised of Glasgow.  But with upper middle-class Margo, we get a chance to view this world through more privileged eyes, and perhaps feel some of the scales fall from them.

Social justice issues aside, this is a wonderfully paced, riveting mystery, that will keep you hooked stronger than a brown trout caught out in the River Clyde.  Mina isn’t called the Queen of Tartan Noir for nothing. She doesn’t need to interrupt her narrative to preach her deeper message. Her finely wrought characters and settings speak for themselves.  And if their voices help you to question why so many “lesser” women die violent deaths every year, then that’s an excellent bi-product of a gripping whodunit. Life is a box of chocolates rife with inequities, sister. Take a bite from Nikki and Susan’s side of the street, and see what you get.

BIO

ERIN RUDDY is a writer, editor, and award-winning journalist. She is currently the executive editor at MediaEdge Communications. She lives in Toronto.

Q&A

Your debut novel, Tell Me My Name, is a nail-biting, domestic noir set in cottage country. What inspired you to write a story in this genre and this setting?

The idea came to me shortly after we’d purchased our new cottage in the summer of 2016. There was something ominous about the house next door, simply because it was beautifully maintained yet it always seemed to be empty. After months of wondering who owned it, I started to imagine someone watching us through the trees—which now seems hilarious given I’ve met the neighbours and they’re lovely. Anyway… I eventually came up with the idea of putting a dark twist on the Rumpelstiltskin folktale and placing it in a remote cottage setting. I had chills when it came to me and I started hammering out the manuscript that very day. Three months later, the first draft was complete.

The book had its publication shifted from the summer to the fall due to the Covid-19 crisis. What was that like?

It hurt, I’m not going to lie. The anticipation (and preparation) for my June book launch had been a year in the making – also, “Tell Me My Name” has a real summer dock vibe, so getting it out there before cottage season was important to me. That said, October is known for its spook factor, so if I had to pick a second best month to release this novel, it would probably be October. Mostly I’m gutted that my book release party was cancelled. I’d been planning an epic party at The Pilot in Toronto featuring a killer live band I’d hired to play “stalker-themed” cover songs. Now I have to appear on camera, and as someone who is shy and awkward, this is not a compelling alternative.

I understand you grew up loving movies like Jaws, The Shining, Aliens and The Thing. What is your favourite recent scary movie?

I have seen a gazillion scary movies lately because my 13-year-old son is obsessed with them—although I’m less into violence and more into psychological suspense. That said, there isn’t a zombie apocalypse movie I haven’t seen. “The Babadook”, however, truly stands out as one of the scariest movies I’ve ever watched. Written and directed by the exceptionally talented Jennifer Kent, it was both moving and chilling, with motherhood being a central theme. Don’t watch it if bedtime stories are still part of your nightly routine.

Do you have an outdoor shower at your cottage? (Editor’s note: If you read Erin’s novel, you’ll understand how creepy this question is)

No, sadly. My husband was supposed to build one the summer we moved in. I guess he changed his mind after reading the opening scenes of my book.

So many reviewers and readers have been drawn in by the unique premise of Tell Me My Name, where a kidnapped woman has three chances to guess her captor’s name or her husband will suffer the brutal consequences.  What gave you the idea for such a compelling “What If” scenario?

I feel like we’ve all had those creepy encounters throughout our lives with individuals who come off as unstable or threatening. It might be a work colleague, a waiter, or someone we regrettably dated— but when those heebie-jeebies come along, it’s a signal to leave and not look back! The feeling itself is as universal as the stress of forgetting a person’s name. Put those two things together, and bingo…instant tension.

What is your favourite thing to do at the cottage (besides using an outdoor shower)?

I enjoy everything about being at the cottage. We are fortunate that ours also doubles as a ski chalet, so it’s just as wonderful to be there in the winter— and luckily, as I mentioned above, our neighbours are not psychotic killers.

How do you think thrilling stories written by women may differ from those written by men? Or do you think there is a difference?

This might be an unpopular answer, but generally speaking, I do think there is a difference. I don’t think one is better than the other, mind you—just that the perspective and experiences of a man are inherently different than those of a woman. Earlier this year, I read “The Whisper Man” by Alex North and was touched by the way he approached the father-son relationship. I’m certain I could not have captured the nuances of that bond or the angst of what they go through in the same honest manner he did. That’s not to say authors should be restricted from writing opposite-sex characters—just that some of the dialogue may not ring quite as true.

How has your background as a journalist informed your writing?

I think it’s helped me a lot, as every day I get to investigate new subjects while honing my skills at the keyboard. Not a day has gone by in the last two decades that I haven’t cranked out 2 – 4,000 words. The problem is, often the last thing I feel like doing after work is sitting back down at the computer. I’ll take the bad with the good however, because I really do love both.

What are you working on now?

Right now I am working on a thriller about two estranged brothers, a woman caught between them, and a scandal that threatens to destroy her. It’s good ‘n racy, and I hope to have it finished by Christmas.

To learn more about Erin Ruddy and her new novel, go to https://www.erinhruddy.com/

NICOLE LUNDRIGAN is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including The Substitute and Glass Boys. Her work has appeared on best of the year selections of The Globe and Mail, Amazon.ca, and Now magazine. Her most recent novel, Hideaway, is currently on the shortlist for a 2020 Arthur Ellis Award. She grew up in Newfoundland, and now lives in Toronto.

You are from Upper Gullies, Newfoundland. Is there a Lower Gullies?

Whenever I’ve been asked where I grew up, I usually say ‘Upper Gullies… and there is no Lower Gullies’. I looked it up, though, and it seems there was a Lower Gullies, but the name has changed.

Your latest novel, Hideaway, was inspired by a discussion with your daughter. Can you tell us a bit about that?

My teenaged daughter was reading Stephen King’s novel, Misery, and we were chatting about the main character, Annie Wilkes. I can’t recall the exact conversation, but I think she was complaining about me, and I said, “Well, can you imagine if she was your mom?” It was a silly thing to say, of course, but for some reason that comment stuck in my head, and it became the spark for Gloria, the mother in Hideaway. Sometimes Gloria’s parenting is a little… questionable.

Your writing has been compared to authors like Gillian Flynn and Laura Lippman, both known for their domestic noir.  How do you think you came to write in this sub-genre that often looks at the darker side of families?

After writing a few thousand words of my first novel, Unraveling Arva, I announced to a few family members that I was writing a book. My mother said very plainly, “If you expect me to read it, you’d better put a murder in it.” That was really no trouble at all, as I’ve always been interested in the darker sides of regular people. I began reading true crime from a young age and have always been curious about the psychology behind deviant behaviour within the framework of families and small communities.

You have lived in a French castle, rescued sea turtles, and done archeological digs for old skeletons. Have any of these unique experiences informed your fiction? And if so, how? (Also, can I hang out with you— because you seem really cool.)

I had those experiences years ago, but when I think about updating my bio, it doesn’t sound nearly as interesting. “Spends hours alone with a laptop and a troubled dog.” I’m guessing all those things have informed my fiction in some way, though I’m not sure I can define it. And yes, we can definitely hang out. Let me know when and where!

Setting plays such a wonderfully enriching role in your books. Where do you think your next novel will be set?

My next novel is well underway, and it takes place in 1958 with two distinct settings. The first is a modest low-rise apartment where a young boy resides with his night-nurse aunt. And the second is a wealthy estate where the boy’s mother works as the live-in housekeeper.

If you could go clubbing with any author (alive or dead) who would it be, and what would you two be drinking?

That’s a tricky question. Timothy Findley was one of my favourite authors, and I was always front of the line when a new book was released. I’d prefer a dinner over clubbing, and we would drink a good red wine. Probably from France. Only a few sips for me, unfortunately, as I have an annoying arrhythmia that has lately been putting a serious crimp in my fun.

What is your latest writing project, and what excites you about it?

When a writing project is developing, I generally resist talking about it. I can say it’s about an 11-year-old boy who is accused of murdering his mother’s wealthy employers. I’ve finished a number of drafts, and after picking through the same material time after time, it actually feels like the least exciting thing in the world.

And finally, since you hail from “The Rock,” please tell us a joke — about people from Ontario.

We are a Newfoundland family, but I was actually born in Ottawa as my father was an MP. My parents moved everyone back to Newfoundland when I was two and a half, and then I left when I was seventeen. I’ve been in Ontario for twice as long as I was in Newfoundland, but my accent is still quite strong (especially if I’m nervous). I’m not sure I qualify as hailing from ‘The Rock, and I can only think of a single joke (which I won’t share). I’m failing at this question! Growing up, there was a beloved family friend who enjoyed word play, and whenever he visited, I always tried to have a pun at the ready. I can throw out one of those… Did you hear about the man who invented lozenges? He died a few days ago. There was no coffin at his funeral. (That one gets a half-smile.)

To find out more about Nicole Lundrigan and her books go to https://www.nicolelundrigan.com/