Interview with Maureen Johnson, author of Nine Liars

After fixing two infamous chilly instances, Stevie and her pals from Ellingham Academy are off to jolly previous England to uncover the reality a couple of double homicide that passed off at a rich nation property in 1995. Meanwhile, they’re additionally dealing with school functions, tutorial pressures, romantic entanglements and extra. In Nine Liars, bestselling author Maureen Johnson provides one other satisfying standalone thriller and offers us an opportunity to spend extra time with characters we’ve grown to like.  

Nine Liars is your fifth novel about Stevie, however a reader may simply choose it up with out having learn the earlier books. What are the challenges of reaching that impact out of your facet of the web page? 
When I got down to write Truly Devious, I used to be making a detective thriller with the intention of having my detective go off in different books to work on different instances. That’s how most detective novels work—you’ll be able to choose up just about anyone of them and skim it with out understanding the characters beforehand. Of course, you get a bit of additional should you do. 

Doing the “previously on” half—compressing it—will be tough. I actually need the expertise to face alone.

All of your books about Stevie steadiness page-turning mysteries with actual emotional stakes for Stevie and her pals. Did you start Nine Liars by asking, “What crime do I want Stevie to solve this time?” or “What’s happening in Stevie’s life now?”
It’s the primary one, although I’m at all times eager about what occurs within the second. Stevie’s life—that’s an natural course of. The homicide thriller is a machine I construct piece by piece and assemble fastidiously. Stevie’s life grows round it, like a flowering vine, she stated, writerly.

The case Stevie investigates in Nine Liars is a rustic home homicide. What was interesting to you about this thriller subgenre? What basic features have been you enthusiastic about together with—or even placing your personal spin on?
The nation home homicide is a basic puzzle from the golden age of thriller for a purpose: You have a set solid of suspects and a contained staging space for the puzzle to play out. Country homes are sufficiently small within the grand scope of issues to provide the issue limits, however large enough and bizarre sufficient to have tons of hidey-holes and passages and issues like that. 

There’s additionally an air of unreality to them. They really feel like a backdrop, not a spot folks would actually stay. That’s half of the enchantment of this type of thriller novel; it’s not meant to really feel like an actual crime, like persons are being harm. It’s Clue. It’s a revolving solid of professors and butlers and unusual family who wish to know concerning the will. 

In Nine Liars, I needed to play with that a bit of. It’s a gaggle of actors, it’s a recreation, it’s a homicide within the woodshed. But then the story continues to the current. The clues are nonetheless scattered round. The occasions within the woodshed had an actual impression. And to resolve it, Stevie should return to the stage the place this all went down.

We’ve seen Stevie resolve instances from the Nineteen Thirties and the Nineteen Seventies, however in Nine Liars, she investigates against the law from 1995. How did this more moderen setting impression the analysis you probably did for this novel?
I used to be in London for the summer time of 1995. I lived there with my pal Kate (who’s now my agent is nicely—we’re shut). I used to be a waitress through the day and a bartender at evening; she labored within the workplace of a theater. We by no means had any cash and principally subsisted on Honey Nut Cheerios and no matter was left over from my work. 

Kate labored within the theater the place the present Riverdance was enjoying. It was the most important present of the 12 months. Everyone needed to see it. We had no cash to do something and typically paid our hire in change, however we may go see Riverdance each evening if we needed to. 

We lived in a flat that had three doorways that have been unimaginable to open, so we normally climbed over the trash cans in entrance of our room and went in via the window, so it was very safe. It was a sizzling, trashy summer time. It was nice. 

One of the questions Stevie tells her head of college that she’ll examine on her journey to the U.Ok. is why studying about homicide could be a comforting exercise. What are your ideas on that query?  
It’s an odd one, proper? Much is made about the truth that what’s known as the golden age of thriller was between and through World War I and II. Books written throughout that point have a continuing background of warfare. Agatha Christie was doing so much of writing when England was being bombed. She wrote the ultimate tales for Poirot, a warfare refugee from Belgium, and Miss Marple in case she didn’t survive. She needed to be the one to complete her characters. These books, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, respectively, have been locked in a financial institution vault till her loss of life in 1976. 

In puzzle mysteries like Christie’s, the world will be made proper. There are options and sometimes penalties. They function a psychological steam valve. Think concerning the world proper now. Nine Liars is popping out right into a world of YA readers who’ve undergone main trauma and confusion. I feel there’s an excellent purpose everybody’s going again to the basic puzzle thriller.

Can you discuss concerning the position that Stevie’s pals Nate, Janelle and Vi proceed to play in her life and in these books?
Many detectives famously have companions. Sherlock has Watson. Poirot has Hastings some of the time, and sometimes a random pal or assistant he’s picked up alongside the way in which. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are a duo (each in crime fixing and in love). 

My whole highschool and school world was my pals. Stevie has to resolve the crime within the context of an actual world, full of folks, with all the thrill and issues they carry.

What was essentially the most difficult half of writing Nine Liars? What facet of it are you most proud of?
I work fairly laborious on the puzzle and ensuring I’ve checked every thing. By the tip, I really feel like I’m doing embroidery and utilizing tweezers, inserting every little element—the mandatory clues, the fakeouts. I like watching it work. It’s like I’ve constructed a monster out of spare physique elements after which it will get off the slab!

What do you like about coming again to the character of Stevie after 4 books?
I’ve been writing Stevie for a number of years now. She’s good firm. She by no means strikes my stuff.

Author picture of Maureen Johnson courtesy of Angela Altus.