Hello Sharon Bolton. Our first question is a kind of ritual on Plume Libre : Who are you? Can you tell us a little more about you?
As a person I’m very ordinary. In my middle years, but very fit and blessed with great health. I’ve been married for seventeen years and am mum to a clever, sporty, funny eleven year old boy. I have a great dog and live in a picturesque village in the English Chiltern Hills. I read, cook and tend my garden. I’m quite nice (or at least I try to be) and enjoy a simple, normal life.
As a writer, I am one of the most terrifying women you will ever meet.
What led you to write? And why did you choose the thriller genre?I came to writing fiction quite late in life because, for the longest time, it simply never occurred to me that I could do it. I get quite cross with myself, looking back, because all the elements were there: a love of reading, an over-active imagination, a job that involved using words to convey ideas. On the other hand, serving a long apprenticeship definitely helped because once I started, creating stories came very naturally and easily. As to why I write thrillers, it’s very simple : I write the sort of stories that I most like to read.
Your novel Now you see me (Ecrit en lettres de sang in French) has just been published in Fleuve Noir. Could you tell us more about it?
Ecrit en Lettres de Sang is about how damage inflicted upon us when we are young can have a long lasting and sometimes devastating impact upon our lives. At the start of the book, two young women are subjected to a brutal attack. Over the years that follow, both come to terms with what happened to them, but they do so in very different ways. It’s also the story of a young policewoman, Lacey Flint, who wants nothing more than to be left alone to get on with her job. Unfortunately, a killer has other plans.
In your novel, the shadow of Jack the Ripper is omnipresent. Jack the Ripper has been used several times in literature and cinema. How had you this idea ?
I’ve long been fascinated by the case of Jack the Ripper, a real killer who has almost passed into legend. The man who lived, and killed in the east end of London over a hundred years ago was coldly brutal and fiendishly clever. Just as the real Jack moved around the slums of the city like a ghost, so the killer in my book flits in and out of the story like a phantom. We don’t see the killer until the very end of the book, but we feel a dark and evil presence throughout.
What are your plans ?My fourth Lacey Flint book, A Dark and Twisted Tide, has just gone into production. I’ve loved writing it, but now I’m going to take a break from Lacey and her friends for a while. My next book will be a standalone story, about how people come to terms with great loss. And, although I’m known for British mysteries, it will be set in a very remote and little known part of the world.
Thank you very much Sharon Bolton, you have the last word.I’d like to say a huge thank you to my French readers. I hear from many of you through my website or Facebook page and it is always a great pleasure to learn that you’ve enjoyed reading my stories just as I’ve enjoyed writing them. I hope that long continues to be the case and remember, it is through our stories that we confront our fears and come to terms with them. Our stories give us courage.
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