Cut you Dead: Behind the Scenes Interview

Here's a recent Interview I did for a local book group about Cut you Dead [don’t worry, no spoilers!]:

 

Can you tell us, in just one sentence, what Cut you Dead is about? 

It’s a psychological thriller about a serial killer who snips off pieces of women’s hair, then kills them seven days later. Woah – sounds creepy! Tell us about your Lead Character: Samantha Willerby is a feisty, jump-in-at-the-deep-end psychologist, who doesn’t always play by the rules. Readers have said that having a psychologist as the ‘amateur sleuth’ puts a refreshing new slant on police procedurals, where the lead character is often a detective. Sam looks at cases from a different perspective, focusing on ‘why’ and not ‘how’ a serious crime is committed, and putting together pieces of a puzzle that others don’t see.

Sam joins the police in a different way this time, is that right? 

In her last adventure, Perfect Bones, Sam helped the Met catch a killer in a grisly murder case. For Cut you Dead, an author friend of mine suggested I investigate cold cases. I loved this idea! I knew Sam would jump at the chance to try her hand at police profiling. So, in Cut you Dead, the Met bring Sam in to examine a batch of closed murder files to see what she can pick up that everyone else has missed. Using every avenue she can think of, and disobeying direct orders on the way, she starts to uncover a trail of clues that lead her right into the path of the killer.

What sparked the original idea for Cut you Dead? 

While I was mulling over ideas for the book, I came across a BBC podcast about delusional behaviour. As a former psychotherapist, I was fascinated by the case histories described in the programme. One of the oldest involved King Charles VI of France, who believed he was made of glass and who used to dress in reinforced clothing to protect himself. There were recent cases, too, such as the woman who felt she was being pursued by the producer of a reality TV show. It got my brain ticking over and I decided I’d like to write about a serial killer who suffered from some form of grandiose delusion – but not quite in the way you’d expect.

What kind of cold cases does Cut you Dead explore? 

From the list of police cold cases, Sam picks out a couple of murders that show similarities with a recent death police think is accidental. The victims all had pieces of their hair hacked off several days before they were killed. The ‘hair-cutting’ idea arose when I was researching something else on the Internet (browsing the Net is a necessary indulgence for any writer!). I accidentally came across an intriguing court case involving a magistrate’s ruling on a man who cut off a girl's ponytail. The man (an ex-boyfriend) was acquitted at first, as the court came to the conclusion that the hair growing out of a person's head was by its nature dead and therefore couldn’t be harmed. I thought this was outrageous! Anyone who feels their hair is their crowning glory would be devastated to find a chunk of it missing. Thankfully, the High Court overturned the decision on grounds of the emotional damage caused.

What’s new and different about this book? 

Many readers will have come across thrillers where the victim’s hair is cropped off, but in Cut you Dead there’s something different. The hair is not a trophy at the crime scene. To find out exactly what the killer does, you’ll have to read the book! Is it true that there’s a romantic element in the book? I don’t want to give too much away, but a lot of readers told me they wanted Sam to finally meet someone – I shall just leave you with that!

Where is the book set and why? 

Cut you Dead is set in the heart of London just after Christmas, when there’s snow and ice on the ground. Sam wants to get into shape, so she takes to the city streets to jog after dark. I love writing about London, it gives me an excuse to revisit it, in all its technicolour pizazz, in my mind! It was also the perfect setting for Cut you Dead; that fabulous combination of crowded places, where a silent perpetrator can slip into the shadows and secluded side streets, and danger can strike out of sight. There’s also the River Thames; majestic and brooding, especially at night-time – and treacherously fast. Sam is probably up against her most devious adversary yet, in this thriller. I found it very gripping to write and I hope you love reading it as much as I loved getting Sam’s story down onto the page!

Why I love writing Psychological Thrillers!

As a child, I devoured the Famous Five mysteries by Enid Blyton and was later drawn to crime thrillers, such as A Simple Plan by Scott Smith and The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Ever since they became recognised as a distinct category, however, I’ve been captivated by psychological thrillers, loving writers such as Minette Walters and Nicci French, from the 1990’s onwards. At the time, I was in awe of all writers and the idea of actually putting together a psychological thriller myself was completely beyond me!

Before I first had a go at writing fiction in 2008, I was a psychotherapist for 15 years. As well as seeing clients with mainstream issues such as low self-esteem, depression and relationship issues, I was privileged to work with ex-convicts from high-security institutions. I found this work fascinating and aside from giving me ideas for novels, it gave me considerable insight into the disturbed and criminal mind.

So, should I try to write murder mysteries or psychological thrillers..? Which would I choose? In the end I didn’t. I put the two genres together.

In my first attempt at a novel, The Evil Beneath, I wanted to create a story that had a distinct mystery on the surface and a deeper psychological thriller lurking underneath. To create dissonance between what the reader ‘knows’ and what the lead character hasn’t yet worked out. I like to find ways to mislead the reader and to create jeopardy from the ‘inside-out’, rather than from the ‘outside-in’. By this I mean that the characters are exposed to danger on a mental level – mind-games and deception – rather than (or as well as!) a physical one.

I’ve written nine psych thrillers to date, with another in the pipeline, and my plots usually centre around the  hidden unreliability or instability of individuals in the story. My protagonists often face a tortuous situation: a missing child, a death made to look like suicide, a stalker, a simple but deadly mistake, for instance. 

In Don’t you Dare, for example, the story starts with a mother misunderstanding a situation involving her daughter and killing someone. This kind of mystery allows the reader to get right inside the minds of key players. It encourages them to try to anticipate how characters might handle certain dilemmas and tempts the reader towards trying to figure out what their true motives are. Not just ‘who dunnit’– but ‘why’ and ‘how dunnit’! It also invites readers to consider: what on earth would I do if I was faced with this situation..?

Most of all, I like the idea of dramatic events happening to ordinary people. A dark and deadly puzzle involving clues where hidden dangers come to light. I love twists and turns and that big OMG moment at the end, of course – that turns everything on its head! In my novel, No Longer Safe, for instance, nothing is as it seems… Many readers told me that when they got to the end of the book, they were so gob-smacked, they had to go back to the beginning to discover how the events turned out as they did! That’s such a great compliment for a writer. I love to knock my readers sideways – and there’s certainly a delicious sting in the tail in that novel!

In all my books I like exploring moral dilemmas and what happens when relationships are blighted by jealousy, secrets, lies or revenge. I like writing ‘domestic noir’ – what could be more scary than thinking you’re safe in your own home and finding that’s where your worst nightmares begin…

My current favourite authors are Belinda Bauer, Claire Kendall,  Lucy Clarke and Sabine Durrant. Brilliant books I’ve read recently are: Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes and Tideline by Penny Hancock.

How Working in a Safe-House helped me write Thrillers

I can honestly say that when it comes to personal experience of the ‘criminal mind’, fact, for me, is just as chilling as fiction. That’s because before I became an author, I'd been a psychotherapist for fifteen years, working from time to time in a safe-house for ex-offenders. The residents were from high-security institutions; women who had served sentences for arson, stabbings, suffocating and all manner of fatal attacks.

So, how has my writing been influenced by working at the safe-house?

Surprisingly, I came away from my encounters with these women feeling more sad, than disturbed. The women had grown up with stabbings, shootings and muggings; they knew no other kind of life. Most had a fragile personality-type, were easily led and got involved with criminal activity because their brothers/sister/mothers lived that life too. Often anti-establishment, they were seeking leadership, gang-culture, excitement and risk-taking. More often than not, they were simply looking for a sense of “family” and belonging.

Since working in the safe-house, I’m inclined to cast women rather than men as the culprits in my books, but they’re never ‘monsters’. While I write about killers and serial killers, they aren’t thugs or callous maniacs. There’s very little violence and gore in my books and far more about harrowing mind-games and dark, driven motives behind the radical acts involved. I’m also fascinated by the differences between law-abiding citizens and those who cross the line into serious crime. I love writing about characters' inner struggle for revenge, their tortured reasons for keeping secrets and telling lies! As a result of all this, I hope my books show a good degree of humanity.

How ‘safe’ was it?

The ‘safe-house’ wasn’t necessarily safe for everyone. During one of my visits, a woman set fire to her room and others self-harmed, as cooking knives and personal property was available as part of the rehabilitation process. Most residents were on antipsychotic medication or drugs for anxiety or depression, so mood-swings was an issue.

The location and confidentiality was very strict, as you can imagine – a place for the women to re-adjust to the idea of integrating back into society. I was there to offer a listening ear for personal problems and fears of going back ‘outside’. Spending time in that volatile setting was tough, but it gave me lots of raw material to slip into my novels!  

 

Perfect Bones

In Perfect Bones, the sole witness to a gruesome attack – a teenage artist living on a narrowboat – is traumatised and can't utter a word. That’s when gutsy protagonist, psychologist Samantha Willerby, is given seven days by the police to coax information from him about the killer. When he finally makes a sketch, it's not what anyone expects – but by then another murder has been committed...

One of the techniques I used in the safe-house was art therapy and in the novel this method is used for the mute witness. The reader has to watch and wait for the artist to show what he saw. 

 

I was deeply affected by the individuals I met in the safe-house and still wonder what happened to them and how their lives turned out. Did they re-offend and end up back inside? Did they turn their lives around? As an author, I like to pose the question ‘how would you react in this tricky situation?’ just as, when I think of those women, I wonder how I would have turned out if I’d had their dysfunctional backgrounds, violent environment and deprivation to cope with.

Perfect Bones is available at all Amazon outlets.

This interview was first published on the Crime Readers' Association website.

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