Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize.
Category Archive: Sophie Hannah
Agatha Christie never wrote books that just started with a dead body, and a ‘Let’s find out who the murderer is’, which is kind of mysterious but not that mysterious. She always started with, ‘How can this thing be happening; isn’t it strange?’
My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of ‘The Body In The Library.’
All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming.
I want my books to explore motives which make people think, ‘Wow! Imagine the psychological state you’d have to be in for that to be your motive!’ Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy – they’re rational reasons for committing murder.
When a writer tries to copy another writer, it’s doomed to fail.
Try as I might, Agatha Christie is unique. The actual writing style can’t be exactly the same, so instead of trying to replicate it exactly, the way I got around it was by inventing a new narrator.
Agatha Christie’s writing is incredibly skillful because her books are incredibly intellectually puzzling and challenging.
Nobody has ever written as many enjoyable, fun-to-read crime novels as Agatha Christie. It’s all about the storytelling and the pleasure of the reader. She doesn’t want to be deep or highbrow.
There are very few well-adjusted people in my books. But I do think that’s normal. Because everyone does have their issues and hang-ups.