How Elly Griffiths Sits Down & Writes
'The Postscript Murders' is a meta-murder mystery that will keep you guessing.
The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.
But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.
And then things escalate: from an Aberdeen literary festival to the streets of Edinburgh, writers are being targeted. DS Kaur embarks on a road trip across Europe and reckons with how exactly authors can think up such realistic crimes.
The Postscript Murders is perfect for fans of Harlan Coben and Mary Higgins Clark.
We got the chance to ask Elly Griffiths all about her writing process—Panda Pop gets involved around Chapter 3—and how murder mystery writers are able to plot the perfect crimes for their books.
Q: Where and when do you like to write the most?
I have a writing shed at the top of my garden. It’s where I like to write, just me and the cat, but I try to tell myself that I could write anywhere, if I had to.
Q: Are you more of a plotter or pantser?
A bit of both. I write a rough outline (longhand, in my notebook) but I always leave room to surprise myself. Often, the story changes as I go along.
Q: Stephen King has a great line in On Writing that says “the scariest moment is always right before you start. After that, things can only get better.” That scary pre-start moment often inspires procrastination in writers. Suddenly, you have to clean your entire house, do the laundry and play Candy Crush for an hour before you can actually start writing. Is there anything you need to do before you can actually sit down and work?
I certainly don’t clean the house! I love beginnings. As soon as I finish one book, I write the first line of the next. It’s about three chapters in that I start procrastinating, playing Panda Pop (never Candy Crush) and moaning to my writer friends on Facebook.
Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what music? Is your choice of music inspired by the project you’re working on?
I like complete silence.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give a writer just starting out on their first draft?
You can fix a bad page but you can’t fix a blank page. Start writing today.
Q: Where do you normally find story inspiration?
For the Ruth books, it usually a place like the Norfolk marshes or a ruined house. For the Brighton Mysteries, it’s often the name of a long-forgotten Music Hall act: Lou Lenny and her Unrideable Mule, Raydini the Gay Deceiver, Levanda’s Feats with the Feet.
Q: The Postscript Murders is definitely a little bit meta in how it talks about how authors come up with these perfectly plotted crimes for their novels. It begs the question—how do you come up with them in your own work?
I often start with half a plot and hope that the other half becomes apparent as I write. It’s always amazing to me the way that, sometimes, the plot is there without you noticing it. This was definitely the case with The Postscript Murders. I was more than halfway through before I realized, ‘oh, that’s who did it’.
Q: This is the second time your readers are introduced to DS Harbinder Kaur. What was it like to continue one character's story from The Stranger Dairies into a new crime and setting in The Postscript Murders?
I knew that I wanted to write about Harbinder again and I was pretty sure that she wanted to solve another case. The Postscript Murders gave us a chance to know her better but I think she might appear in one more book.
Q: There are some fun settings in Postscript Murders, including the literary festival in Aberdeen, Scotland. How do you make your settings come alive in your writing?
I visited Aberdeen for a crime-writing festival a few years ago. I thought then that it would be fun to write about this beautiful, but also slightly spooky, place. It’s often called The Granite City but also The Silver City and I wanted to explore both sides. When I write about a location I like to explore the layers: historical, social, geographical. Norfolk (the setting of the Ruth Galloway books) is perfect because there is so much history there and so many legends. I feature several of them in Ruth 13, The Night Hawks.
Q: What was the last mystery novel you read that kept you guessing til the very end?
I’ve just read The Appeal by Janice Hallett, a crime novel written entirely in emails and text messages. As soon as I’d finished, I had to go back to the beginning to see what I’d missed.
Pick up your copy of The Postscript Murders at bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound. Happy reading!
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