CULTURE CLUB
A POTENT MESSAGE IS CONCEALED BENEATH HER SNAKING PLOTS
REWORKING AN ICON With the blessing of Agatha Christie’s family, Sophie began the Poirot series in 2014
layered, but in The Couple at the Table , the message is straightforward: whatever the circumstances, there is always the option to behave like a decent human being, and we should always take that option, unless we want karma to come and bite us on the bum later on.” Cambridge is not only Sophie’s home, but a great part of her writing life: she is course director of Cambridge University’s Masters in Crime and Thriller Writing. “Teaching takes place at Madingley Hall, a 16th-century country house just outside Cambridge, which is set in the most gorgeous grounds. I finished my fourth Poirot novel there, while teaching the first ever module of the course – and you couldn’t wish for a better setting to write in. It’s so atmospheric and beautiful. It has this positive effect on the students and my teaching team, too. A very special environment to work and study in.” Now 24 novels, six poetry collections and two non-fiction books in, Sophie shows no signs of slackening her pace. She runs an immersive online coaching programme, Dream Author, and is recording her podcast How to Hold A Grudge (based on her non-fiction book of the same name) on how she believes grudges are “positive, transformative, enlightening, and an all- round force for good in the world”.
her experience of becoming a mother, when a baby that wasn’t hers was handed to her by a midwife. Defining her books as “continuation novels”, her writing process has stayed constant. “Planning is a top priority and I never start a first draft until I have a chapter-by-chapter plan. My method does have a bit of a twist, though, in that rather than aiming for a simple nuts-and- bolts outline, I’ll include every important detail. What I end up with is half-plan, half-first draft. It’s what I call my ‘gnocchi method’ because – in the same way that gnocchi is part-pasta, part-potato – my plan is two things at once!” “I make sure each book works just as well on its own as it does as the latest in the series,” Sophie continues, although she considers the Simon and Charlie series “one long narrative” and looks back fondly at its early entries. Having put the pair’s relationship on trial until her fifth book, A Room Swept White , the two detectives have found their rhythm by The Couple at the Table . “I’ve really enjoyed getting them to that point and writing about their relationship now that it’s found its feet. I love them and want them to be happy!” Like in Sophie’s previous novels, a potent message is concealed beneath her snaking plots. “Normally, my ‘morals of the story’ are quite subtle and multi-
This is an unconventional attitude characteristic of Sophie’s radical approach to human nature, brought to bear in her nail-biting mysteries. The writer has a gift for scouring the inner psychological depths of perplexing characters, probing deserved fates and debunking evil and innocence – a dexterity that defines her novels. The Couple at the Table is no exception.
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