-Good morning.

We're so excited to have you here.

So a quick recap.

Lauren's "Indie Darling" follows Kelly Williams, a Nashville P.I., and Dolly Parton devotee who specializes in helping women.

She's hired by an indie rock star who's receiving increasingly disturbing threats before the case takes a much stranger turn.

Tim's "The Tailor" is the eighth mystery featuring DS George Cross, an autistic detective who relies on evidence, logic, and patterns.

His latest case begins when a murdered man is discovered aboard a train wearing a well-made suit.

So these two books are about detectives who don't fit the traditional molds, and they see the world in very, very different ways.

What did creating these detectives allow you to do that maybe a conventional detective couldn't?

-Well, they're incredibly fun to write.

My detective, Kelly Williams, she's a Dolly Parton loving, sports car driving, private investigator who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

And so creating this character allowed me to explore the city through her eyes.

And she's the type of person who's going to listen to Dolly with the windows down, but she's also going to approach everyone.

So from the victims that she's helping through her private investigations firm, but also the suspects that she comes into contact with from a place of love and understanding.

There's a scene where she bakes a suspect cookies in an attempt to get a confession, which is very different.

I had a different detective in an earlier series named Marlitt Kaplan, and she was going to stare down a suspect, she was going to take him into an interview room and try to get all the questions out of them.

But using a P.I., she doesn't have the same resources.

She doesn't have that police station, the other detectives, the blood splatter analysis.

Whatever would help her, she has to think outside of the box.

And so that was a fun way to be a little bit more creative in how she's going to investigate the crimes.

-With George, George is on the spectrum, which means he's wired slightly differently.

And the great thing about him is the way he approaches crime.

In a funny sort of way, he's an outsider within the system because he's obsessed with the mundane.

He's obsessed with people's routines.

Unlike yours, he doesn't have an understanding, particularly of people.

He kind of gleans that through learned behavior.

And I think in a funny sort of way, people often say about George that he has more important relationships with the dead than he does with the living.

Because of the way he kind of, he becomes the victim's voice at a time when there is no one else.

And as I say, he often thinks the small thing is the thing that will solve a crime, a small thing that others might overlook.

In the case of "The Tailor" where a tailor is brutally murdered on a train, in the toilet of a train going to London, everyone is -- no one can understand that, and nor can he why someone would kill a bespoke tailor.

What fascinates him, though, is where's his luggage?

-And... -[ Laughter ] -...he ends up being right.

Oh, was that a spoiler?

No, it wasn't.

-Well, it makes me think.

Does a great detective need to understand people or just understand what they've done?

-That's so interesting, because I think our characters approach that very differently.

I think for mine, she's picking up on those social clues that I don't think your detective would.

-[ Laughter ] -What's lovely about George Scott is he carries around a journal to know how to respond in certain situations, because he's learned over the years how to -- that he maybe doesn't always respond correctly.

And so he has a journal.

Okay, in this situation, if you're going to deliver the news that your loved one is deceased, he flips through his pages.

I'm so sorry.

And so where I think for my detective, she has that Southern charm.

She's got that in her back pocket.

And that's part of how she is able to solve the case, to get answers.

She knows she's a very perky, short, blonde woman.

Think Reese Witherspoon and any movie that she's played where she's very bright, but she's also underestimated.

-Sullivan: I love the fact that you're casting the movie.

-Reese Witherspoon, if you're in the audience.

-Sullivan: It's just amazing.

-But in that same way where she's underestimating it and she's using that to her advantage, those social cues, those assumptions in a different way, where your character is very much focused on those facts, the facts, and through the facts he's going to solve the case.

-Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.

I mean, I think that Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, recently in England dispelled this myth about people on the spectrum and empathy.

And the perceived wisdom was that people on the spectrum didn't have empathy.

And he says, "This is not true."

What it is that in any situation someone on the spectrum might not, in the moment understand how to respond, but when given the information, will organically then be able to formulate a response.

But it dictates for me the way that George works.

And I have various rules about George, and he has dozens for me as a writer, which is kind of slightly irritating at times, but there's nothing I can do about that.

But we never laugh at George.

We often laugh at people's reactions to him or people's behavior around him, but we never laugh at him.

But one of my -- I think in the first book, "The Dentist", the way you get George is they're investigating an ex-policeman.

An ex-policeman never liked being investigated because it reminds them how old they are, and they're being told they're not doing a very good job.

And this guy was a real bully to George when he first joined the force.

And he rings on the doorbell, and this retired policeman opens the door and he looks at George and he goes, "Oh, it's PC Odd."

To which George replies, "Actually, it's DS Odd now.

And for me, Oti thinks this is really funny, but actually, he's not making a joke.

He's trying to point out the inaccuracy.

That's what's important to him.

-Well, I think it's interesting that in very different ways, both of you encountered some pushback from editors or publishers about your detectives and maybe telling you no, that this isn't the person you should be writing.

What happens creatively when someone tells you no, and tell us a little bit about that process?

-[ Inhales deeply, laughs ] -She cast Reese Witherspoon.

It's what she does.

-How honest can I be with my reactions?

I mean, I think we hear no a lot in this industry from getting agents, selling, you know, when your agent sells your novel you hear a lot of no.

There's a lot of rejection before you hear that yes.

And that also can come from your own editor where they tell you, "Hey..." So the backstory for me of hearing a very big no from both my agent and editor is I had written two books in a series, the Detective Marlitt Kaplan series.

One was "The Resemblance".

One was "The Professor".

She was the detective I mentioned earlier who is going to stare down the suspect.

She's very obsessed with finding the truth.

She's a bit jaded by the system and some of the things that she's experienced within there.

I loved her.

I think I wrote her much more naturally than I write my fun, sports car driving, Dolly Parton loving detective.

But I was told after I had wrote a third book in the series that they didn't want it.

And they wanted a standalone, which was obviously hard to hear after you've spent a year writing a book that that's not the book that your editor and agent wanted.

And so I ended up having to completely revise what I had written, which looked like a lot of banging my head against the wall and walking in circles, trying to pace and figure out the plot.

But ultimately, after you sit with that no and you start to think creatively.

Well, okay, so I can't do this.

What can I do?

And I do think what I ended up doing with "Indie Darling", it pushed me to be creative in ways the first book would have never been.

And there's now interludes where we see a band through TikTok videos, old videos that have been discovered of this band before their breakup.

There's also, so of my private investigator is hired by a controversial musician who then proceeds to disappear.

And so she's pulled into this much bigger investigation.

But what the singer has left behind are stage performances that have been recorded and lyrics, and she's hidden clues within the lyrics.

And so I then wrote the lyrics that are in the book and that kind of creativity.

And also having the time because I wasn't writing on contract, so I worked on this for about five years.

Having the time to do that pushed me in a way that I think had I just been told, "Yes, this is great, move forward," it would have been a completely different book, and I might not have been pushed to do the creative solutions that ultimately I had to do because I was told no.

Not that I like being told no, absolutely not.

I think, I don't know how you feel, Tim, when I-- -Oh, I love it.

-Yeah, when you send in your manuscript, I'm hoping to be told, "Yes, this is brilliant.

This is genius."

Now, I know if they do that, they didn't read it very closely.

There's absolutely no way that it is, but it takes a while.

-If they don't say that to me, I think they haven't read it closely.

-Exactly, absolutely.

Because there's no way that the first thing that they see, they're not going to have any comment on.

-With me, when I decided, basically, I just worked on a big movie, "My Little Pony, A New Generation", which I'd co-produced and co-written.

-[ Laughter ] -And I decided after that, that there was only one direction in which to go, which was crime fiction.

And I have always been interested in autism, particularly in the workplace.

In the UK, the first diagnosis of what we can't call Asperger's anymore what we call ASC wasn't until the mid-90s.

Up until then, people were just discriminated against or misunderstood, or misrepresented.

Anyway, I sent the book to my agents who promptly turned it down, but I'd only been with them for 40 years.

So if I was expecting loyalty, I was looking in the wrong place.

I then went to two other agents, and I was asked the same question whether I was autistic or not, and I'm not.

Then I was asked whether my children were autistic, which I thought was slightly inappropriate.

And I was told that because I wasn't, I could be accused of neuroscientific appropriation.

I couldn't even spell that.

And so they said publishers wouldn't touch me.

So I went back to my wife and I said, "Okay, I've done all this work.

I've written 50,000 words."

What I'm going to do is I'm going to sell -- I'm going to look into self-publishing.

I'm going to self-publish this.

And if the autistic community pushback, I'll drop it.

I'll stop.

If the neuroscience, you know, the neurotypical pushback, I won't mind so much.

Anyway, we published and within 4...16 weeks, we'd had over 175,000 downloads.

I say we, it's me.

And sort of extraordinary emails coming from people saying my son is autistic.

How did you get inside his head?

I had one just this last week from a woman saying, I need to thank you.

We have a daughter who's 17.

I've always thought she was on the spectrum.

My family have told me not to put labels on her, but there are things about her.

And I read your books and I thought, "They're so much like George."

So we've just got a diagnosis and she is autistic.

And one of the profound impacts it's had is that she's going to university in September.

And because she's now on the spectrum, she will be given an en suite bathroom, which might not seem much to many people.

But for her, if you put George in that context, the notion of sharing a bathroom with strangers is completely inconceivable.

So thank you.

And you read this, and it's incredibly humbling because I didn't set out to do that, but it's become more and more of a kind of the authenticity of his condition and his condition is his gift has become more and more important.

And I feel now a great responsibility and a great affection for that community.

-Hearing back from those families, how did that impact how you write George, and also tell us a little bit about your process and the research.

-Well, I've been researching autism over about 20 years.

I was a director at Granada TV many years ago.

And before, just a name drop, before I directed Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, which I consider to be one of the great Sherlocks of all time.

I was doing a kids' program.

It was a sketch show.

And all the comedy was, the objects were the adults.

And the scenic painter came in.

The designer brought in the scenic painter and said, "You've got to use this guy."

And I said, "Well, he's a bit strange, isn't he?"

And he went, "Yeah, but he's a genius."

And we said that this child had nightmares and we wanted this bedroom to reflect that she thought about jungles, and the next day we came in and he painted a Rousseau, you know, the Rousseau jungle.

And it was genius.

And you just went, "Oh, my God."

His name was Hannibal.

My God, this is genius.

And he just went, "Yep," and walked off.

And for me, I kind of realized that he was different.

And so I started researching it, and the research just went on and on.

And when it came to George, George actually fits into a tradition of detectives from Auguste Dupin to Sherlock.

I think you'd argue, Poirot, they're all on the spectrum.

And so in a sense, it felt natural.

But I'm no expert on autism.

I'm just an expert on George's autism.

I know his autism, and I'm constantly learning, constantly reading, because our understanding of that area just changes all the time.

And you've got to keep abreast.

But his autism is not a gimmick like Inspector Morse's Jaguar.

His condition is his gift.

That is who he is.

And that's why it's been so rewarding.

-Yeah.

Lauren, you're not Kelly either.

How did you go about writing this character?

And maybe also what can you-- -She's a country and western singer.

-It's my secret, my secret life.

-I was wondering also what Kelly can do that Marlitt couldn't.

Like, why did they say this isn't the right person for the job?

-Oh, interesting.

I mean, part of creating Kelly was I was just creating someone who was so different from Marlitt.

I just knew I needed a completely different protagonist.

It was also an attempt to write something more commercial.

The first two books were more -- They're considered literary thrillers, which, of course, everything we write is literary because we're using our words and we're talking about the human condition.

And I think especially crime novels, because we're investigating breaks in the social order allows us to investigate very human themes of what happens between the victims, the detectives, and then, of course, our criminals, what motivates them, it's a great way to investigate and a great genre to investigate social themes.

But yeah, so for Kelly, it was just what would Marlitt do?

And thinking about the opposite, a lot of times, because I was -- I was taking a manuscript that had already been written and I was rewriting the scenes.

Now, what happens when you have a character who's very different is they're going to do something different because the characters are driving your story.

I had written Marlitt would do in a scene had to completely -- I couldn't just change her name.

Her actions had to change too, because this character, who loves Dolly Parton and drives around Nashville, is not the same as a character who is the daughter of a university professor who's obsessed with truth and justice to such an extent that she'll really break the rules and even sometimes hurt the people in her life in pursuit of this.

But Kelly is not going to do this.

So a lot of it was just thinking, "Okay, what would Marlitt not do?"

And then having Kelly do that.

And then in order to get into her mind, her character, her voice, I listened to Dolly Parton's music on repeat just to get me into that headspace, I would go work at my local coffee shop, I'd put in Dolly and I'd just go, "Let's go.

We're becoming Kelly today."

And that was how I would get into her voice.

I listened to, I watched movies with Dolly Parton, like "9 to 5".

I watched documentaries about her.

I listened to podcasts about her.

"Dolly's America" was a great one to get into that kind of mindset.

And I think through researching Kelly, I became a huge Dolly Parton fan myself.

I heard someone go, "Whoo," yes, for Dolly Parton, so... -I'd just like to point out, George is also a Dolly Parton fan.

-I was going to say.

-I love the idea of George listening to Dolly.

-What would George think of Dolly Parton, and what would George think of Kelly?

-Well, it's interesting, because as you said that, it suddenly occurred to me.

It hadn't occurred to me when I read your book.

Of course, music plays a part in both our characters.

My characters are often, if you're on the spectrum, if you have ASC, you become obsessed with things.

Things, interests become really important to you.

And George is a self-taught church organist, and he loves to play the church organ.

And often in the middle of a case.

He always practices at 7:30 in a church on a Thursday.

He'll often get lost in a piece of Bach and work things out.

The only frustration is the priest who George doesn't realize it, but is actually a friend of George's, wants him to play at ceremonies.

But George is an atheist and therefore he can't play at any weddings or funerals because it would be an act of gross hypocrisy.

But it's funny how music informs.

So with me, it's Bach and all sorts of Widor.

And with you, it's Dolly Parton.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

I'm curious a little bit about, you know, you mentioned listening to Dolly on repeat.

Is there a music setting that when you're writing that you have to be in, anything of that sort?

It's interesting because my instinct is to say no, but then I think of how I write and I am particular.

Each book that I've written, I have gravitated toward a certain genre of music, certain singer, and I end up having a playlist.

But it's something that's more, it's organic.

It's not something I think a lot about.

And it might just be what I start listening to at the very beginning.

The first book that I put out, "The Resemblance", I initially wanted to call "Grotesque Animals".

Which is, let's just say when I told my editor that, and that's actually when it went on submission, what it was called, he said, this sounds like a YA fantasy novel.

I don't think it sounds like a thriller.

-Sullivan: You'd have sold millions.

-I think it's fine.

I mean, come on.

I mean, "The Resemblance" is somewhat generic.

If you Google that, all that comes up is the resemblance is uncanny, you know, because it's such a well-known -- It does fit with the themes of the book, but very generic, very much in that era where many thrillers were the something, was the something was the way that so many thrillers are titled, including my own.

But I thought it was brilliant.

But part of this was because I was listening to a band called Of Montreal.

Despite the name, they're an Athens-based band, and that's where the first -- Athens, Georgia-based band.

That's where the first two books take place.

And for one scene that takes place in a basement, if anyone has read the novel, I listened to a song of theirs called "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" on repeat, just to get myself into the headspace of this very meaty scene that I was writing.

So I guess I do gravitate towards certain songs and then I write at home normally, but I'm very much an extrovert who needs to see people.

So in the afternoons, I will move and work from a coffee shop.

And that's often when I have my headphones in, and I'm listening to some kind of music.

-Do you have a process, death metal?

-[ Laughter ] -No, I mean, I'm sort of, I'm relatively extrovert, but, I don't go to coffee shops because people tend to stare at me when I'm writing, but no, I write at home.

I'm sort of old-fashioned in a way.

I write with a fountain pen.

So I write in big A4 ledgers and then I have to put it into my computer.

So I rewrite it when I do that.

And then I send it to my iPad so I can rewrite all over it in pencil again before it goes back.

And it's a nightmare.

I have way too many.

George would be really proud of my process and also my collection of fountain pens.

I have far too many, but it's partly because I have to write in a different color every day.

This makes me sound really weird.

-Spiegel: [Laughs] I can't tell if you're joking or not.

-Yeah, and music -- [ Mumbles ] -I'm not really into basement... -Nossett: Writing?

-...stuff, so I'm more of a kind of -- no one's going to read after they hear this.

I'm more kind of Rachmaninoff.

And a bit of Manchester '90s music really me.

-Wonderful.

Well, you both touched on themes of empathy, both in your books and when we've had conversations.

I'm curious, how important is it for a detective to have empathy or be more clinical about the process?

-Do you want to take this first?

-Yeah.

-I think, well, I think it's interesting that, you know, with George, I think, as I said, George does have a certain amount of empathy when he understands the situation.

He feels what's happened to his victim is dreadful.

And being on the spectrum, often people on the spectrum need things to be right, which leads you very neatly into providing justice for someone.

But also, he's very -- If a woman goes and has her blue rinse in Cheshire every Thursday for 35 years and the Thursday before she's murdered, she doesn't go to her appointment and five days later she's killed that really interests George.

Everyone goes, "Well, so she didn't go to her appointment?"

He'd go, "No, no, no.

Why didn't she go to her appointment?"

You know, it's the small things that really interest him.

And I think that sometimes emotion in detectives can get in the way of detection.

And sometimes that's a great strength, and it also provides for great writing.

But with George, it's more that he is -- he knows the answer to the case lies within it, and often, if they reach a dead end, for his colleagues, this is a terrible moment.

For him, a dead end is a piece of evidence.

It means that line of investigation is closed.

I can move on.

So I think that, and, you know, I often say that in crime as a crime writer, if you get -- it's your obligation to get stuck.

It's part and parcel.

It's an occupational hazard.

And when I get stuck, I know it sounds a bit weird, I just turn to George and go, "I haven't got a clue.

You go figure it out."

And he generally does.

-It is true.

You can follow your detective or your protagonist, and they can lead, and get you out of sticky situations based on just how they would react.

Once you know your character that well, and we talked about how at a certain point your character becomes like a friend.

You do know them.

You know how they would respond.

You put them in a situation and you know how that particular character would respond.

And not just your main character but all the secondary characters that you've put into your novel.

And, you know, it's interesting because I just have these two different characters who are so different.

They're both driven by a pursuit of justice, but come at it from very different lenses.

And for me, it's also important that I, as the author, have empathy when writing these characters.

So both the protagonists, but also everyone else who populates their world, because I think that's why we read is we want to peer behind the veil of the surface of what we see as humans.

We want to see here's this woman who on the outside for my song, my singer-songwriter who goes missing.

She has completely curated her world, her public persona.

It's interesting last night at the -- there was an opening ceremony, and Michael Feinstein has written Liza Minnelli's memoir biography, and he was saying how difficult that was because she had to be so vulnerable and opening herself up and telling her story when she has created this public persona.

But then because she's such a public figure, other people were writing those stories for her, so it was time for her to open up and be vulnerable.

And it made me think of my own musician because she has done the same thing.

She has completely curated this public image, but in a way of doing that, she's allowed who she is as a person to disappear.

And so how is she able to give that authenticity to her fans?

But what's interesting, because we're exploring her through the lens of a novel, is we are able to see those vulnerabilities.

We're able to see what makes her tick, what her goals are, what her heartbreaks are.

And the novel form gives us that.

And there's a James Baldwin quote about reading that I love where he talks about how he wants things, and excuse me for paraphrasing it, but how he once felt alone in his pain and his heartbreak.

But then he read, and he was aware of all the heartbreak and pain in the world and how much that connected him to the world.

And I think that's something that when we read we're looking for, for that moment of, that author sees me.

They've written something that I maybe haven't articulated in the same way, but I felt, but also allows us to know that even the strangers sitting next to us have those in our lives.

They are carrying all of the beauty, all of the goals, but also the pain and vulnerabilities that we all experience and carry through our day-to-day life.

So I think that's something I try to bring to my characters, so that they can exude that.

But I also think about that.

That I, as an author, we get to reveal these private moments, private thoughts, private vulnerabilities of our characters.

-Well, I think something you, when we talked before, it stuck with me to say we all carry more than you can see.

And these are murder mysteries, but also things about loss is that part of the genre is writing about loss.

And how do you reconcile that with these entertainment -- entertaining plots?

-Yeah, that's something I've thought a lot about.

Before my first book came out, my husband passed away suddenly.

And so I was, all of a sudden, I had written these books that start with murder.

My husband was not murdered.

It was a medical event, but it was thinking a lot about death.

And of course, we researched the research that we have to do.

I knew things that I didn't want to know all this, and I knew things that I needed to know for the book, but I did not want to think about when it came to my own personal loss.

And so then, as I was doing the revisions and writing forward, I think my focus has changed, actually, a little bit more to the survivors and what they experience after -- after that kind of sudden loss, but also thinking about different projects.

My husband was a musician, and so his voice lives on.

And it's such an incredible gift to hear his voice, to have his voice, to have the legacy of his voice.

And then with "Indie Darling", it's about a musician.

I started writing it when he was still alive.

I thought this would be a project we would work on together, and he would proof the novel before it came out to make sure that there were no mistakes.

When I talked about the music world, I imagined us writing, really it being a collaborative project where I would write the lyrics and then he would write the melody.

And when the book came out, we would have this simultaneous book and record release that didn't come to pass.

But because I live in Nashville and really through him, I have a lot of musicians in my life.

For our launch party, I hired a Dolly Parton impersonator, which was fun.

It felt like I was meeting the real Dolly Parton.

She was absolutely phenomenal.

And she kicked us off by singing "9 to 5".

But then also many of these singer-songwriters who have been brought to my life through Gray, my late husband, they sang some of the songs that I put into the book.

So the whole project felt like this full-circle moment of legacy and the art that we create and how it lives on, and continues to inform, of course, the people who love us.

But then everyone who reads this book, I feel like will have also experienced a part of my husband and what he's taught me.

I think, I feel like I've completely gone off the rail from the original question.

-No.

That was beautiful.

-I can't even remember what the original question was.

-I don't either, because I think I've gone so, so far away from it, but it was something about loss and grief, which is what took me on that tangent.

We'll give it over.

Maybe Tim will stay more on top of the topic.

-I was more about what role does loss play-- -You don't remember what the question was.

-A mystery in an entertaining-- -Yeah.

I mean, I think the thing about writing murder mystery is that you're always going to deal with loss because someone in that mystery is going to have lost someone.

And you have to pay attention to that.

You have to pay attention to your victim.

You have to make the reader care for your victim.

You have to inculcate a sense of loss for your reader about what the world is missing.

But, you know, with George, George has this very tight coterie of friends.

He just doesn't realize that he has it.

And they often inform, you know.

I've written eight books.

They're a series.

And where a lot of the warmth comes is from their relationship with George as well as their relationship with each other.

So, in a sense, you have this -- you know, he has this partner at work, Josie Ottey, and the book you referred to, she's called the Ottey Jottey.

-where he writes down... -Spiegel: I love that.

-...bits that he must remember.

And I think for readers, it's really satisfying when you have a series where you know people and you can -- it's not just the crime, you're going back to catch up with what's happened to almost old friends.

Character is so important in crime because I don't know, probably someone will point out a series, but I can't imagine you could write a successful crime series that simply went from crime to crime to crime to crime, and had nothing else involved.

People would soon get fed up with that.

You know, crime is part of life.

Loss is part of life.

When I wrote movies, I wrote a movie called Jack and Sarah with Richard E. Grant, and Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen, where, the mother, this young mother dies in the first 12 minutes of the movie having given birth.

And it's about loss.

In that sense, you're trying to make people cry as well as laugh, hopefully at the same time, and hopefully when they don't know which one to do because then, you're writing successfully.

-Yeah.

Did you go into George Cross thinking about a series, and also, how do you keep these characters evolving over a series without getting kind of trapped?

-No, I think, I mean, because I write, so in a sense, I didn't set out for it to be a series.

It kind of evolved into that because I was self-publishing at the time, and you need to have a second book when you self-publish, and you need to publish it very quickly, which I didn't realize at the time I agreed to publish.

Anyway, so, but yeah, so you need to, but I don't plan.

So all I do is, I have a body and that's all I know.

And then George has got to go and figure it out.

But the back story of his family and his partners at work, those I will often think through.

You know, when I've got the crime and I start writing, I then immediately think about George's parents.

Well, what are they going to do in this book?

What's their function?

And it's always related to George in some way.

So, yeah.

-And Lauren, can you imagine spending eight books with Kelly, or, and also, how do you develop that kind of community around her?

-I mean, one thing I learned through the first two books is not to write the next in a series until I'm sure that there's a demand for it.

But yes, I mean, I can, especially because Nashville is such a rich setting, I can imagine... I don't know if you feel like this, Tim, but as a crime thriller writer, I find it very easy to imagine how things can go wrong, so... -Sullivan: Look at me.

-So driving around town, seeing, of course, Nashville has become such a destination for bachelorette parties.

So you see these large group of women walking through town, and you can think of all the dynamics between them, how things can go wrong.

So quite terrifying for my husband, you know, going to sleep at night next to a thriller writer, knowing that these are the things that I think about before bed.

-[ Laughter ] -Tim, you touched on this a little bit, but when you begin writing a murder mystery, -do you know who did it?

-No.

-Sometimes.

-And do you start with the victim, the detective, the crime, or does it vary?

-Varies.

-I would say it also varies, yes.

-And then do you ever discover the killer alongside your detective?

[ Laughing ] Are you letting the detective kind of tell you where to go?

-Yeah, well, not literally, no, because we wouldn't get on.

But yeah, I mean, I follow the detective and in a sense, because we -- because I don't know who's done it, I mean, I was once at one of these events, but there were only about three people I think there in England.

Someone said, "Oh, I knew who did it on page 142."

To which I replied, "Well, well done, because I didn't."

And I think that if you are discovering alongside the detective, we're never ahead of the reader.

It's an organic process, which I think makes it more rewarding, essentially.

We're finding -- I mean, it's a bit terrifying.

But in "The Tailor", weirdly, I knew really early on who had done it and it really messed with my head.

I, kind of, I just wanted to finish the book.

It would have been a really, maybe a short story, but it was kind of because I kind of feel, "Well, what am I going to do now?"

I can't plan because the joy of it's gone for me.

I like the discovery.

For me, and this isn't to disparage many more successful writers than me who plan, but for me, it's a bit like painting by numbers.

And it's a bit like, "Well, if I know who's done it, then all I've got to do throughout the book is deceive the audience, the reader."

And I don't really write like that.

-Mm-hmm.

-I don't know about... -Hey, I was thinking about it as you were talking.

Often, I think I know who did it, and then it turns out it was someone else.

-That's even cooler.

-I mean, it's again from a lack of planning.

-So you really don't know what you're doing.

That's brilliant.

-I love that.

-Well, and so there's -- Authors often talk about are you a plotter?

Meaning do you plot out the entire book in advance?

Or are you a pantser?

Meaning do you write by the seat of your pants, which it sounds like is what you do to a certain extent.

-Yeah.

But for me, the pantser, I don't write by the seat of my pants, but when I'm thinking goes, things are going wrong, I had a weird sensation down there.

-[ Laughter ] -Maybe that's what they meant this whole time with pantser.

You're shifting around, trying to figure it out.

I feel like I'm a little bit of a hybrid, which I think a lot of authors are.

I find if I have a general idea of where I'm going, it's a lot less painful because what happens is when I don't know what I'm going, I often, because we're writing these twisty plots, I will write myself into a corner and then I can't get out of it.

And then I have to, at that point, I outline.

I'm like, "Okay, this is what's here."

I break it apart, delete a lot of words, and then rewrite it and put it back together.

And every time I do that, I say, "Next time.

Next time, I will plot."

And then I hardly ever do.

But it is the -- I think the joy of discovery, like you said, is part of the fun.

And maybe -- I will say my husband ruined -- Does anyone watch "Only Murders In The Building"?

-Spiegel: Mm-hmm.

-Should I?

I don't know if I should ruin it for you, but he always knew how to figure it out, and he told me what it was.

And so now when I write, I have that in the back of my head.

To not do it so that you cannot figure it out based on this character trope.

I won't ruin it for you all.

I think that nobody came here to have that show ruined, so I won't do it, but it is now in the back of my head when I'm writing of, you're not allowed to do that, you're not allowed to make your villain that particular character.

-Mm-hmm.

How do you deal with spoilers and things of that sort, when especially you mentioned that somebody online came after you.

-[ Laughter ] -Yeah.

Someone online in the recent book said, "Oh, that was so clever what you did and that this per-- I never guessed that it was so and so, and tweeted it.

It was like the week of publication.

I wrote back and went, "What are you doing?"

And he went, "Oh, sorry, I just thought the book was so marvelous.

I'll delete the post."

But he had 16 followers, so it was okay.

-[ Laughter ] -Did he tag you in it?

Is that how you-- -Yeah, he tagged me, whatever that means.

Yeah.

No, but it's kind of, but with the new book, it's quite difficult to discuss without spoilers.

It's interesting that I've never really had that before, but normally you can discuss a novel without giving too much away, but with "The Tailor", it's just one of those things.

You have to read it.

-I can't tell me.

-Yeah.

-So what he's saying is go get his book.

-It's in the bookstore.

-Yeah.

-Well, I'm also curious.

You mentioned earlier, Sherlock and Poirot maybe having, you know, being on the spectrum.

Your characters are very different than Sherlock and Poirot.

Do you both see your detectives as breaking from the traditional crime genre or fitting into it?

-Oh, mine's totally original.

No, I mean, I think, you know, I think, of course, you find your place within a genre and it would take someone incredibly brilliant to kind of subvert that.

And I'm very happy to be in that genre and guided by it.

You know, I love reading great crime fiction.

It's weird.

When I was writing movies, when I was writing a movie, I could never go to the cinema because I would then just come back and rewrite whatever I'd just seen in whichever movie I was writing at the time.

Whereas writing fiction, I learn from good and bad writing.

And, you know, it's really easy to judge.

What you enjoy, for you is good.

What you don't enjoy for you is not.

And it's really interesting that way of learning.

So I'm very happy to be -- I don't, no, I don't think -- I think George is unique, but it's the character.

What he does is not necessarily unique.

-It's interesting that you said you're guided by the genre and genre expectations because I feel very much that way.

I wrote -- So my background is I was a professor of German literature.

And so when I first started writing, well, my first book, a drawer novel, was about Thusnelda.

She was the wife of Arminius, who was a Germanic tribal leader who in 9 AD led these Germanic tribes to... Yes, I know exactly.

This is how the novel read, because I knew-- -Sullivan: What is this panel about?

-I knew so much about it, and I wanted to put it into what would be a historical fiction novel.

And of course, no one wants to read a huge information dump of everything that you know about this battle.

-Tim Sullivan: That's where I think I'm wrong.

-In 9 AD.

where the Germanic tribes were in a revolt against three legions of Rome, which I still find absolutely fascinating.

I just don't think I'm the person to write it.

And then from there, I wrote five more literary fiction novels because I was teaching literature, primarily literary fiction.

And it wasn't until I wrote "The Resemblance", which fell into genre fiction.

And it was really I was writing in a genre that I loved to read.

It wasn't work for me.

It was what I was reading when I wasn't teaching and preparing for class.

That all of a sudden I realized when you start with a body, you have somewhere to go.

You have a crime to solve.

Where when I was writing literary fiction, or even the historical fiction, I didn't have a direction, but starting with a crime, now we know where we're going.

We're going to try to figure out what happened.

And so the rules of the genre really helped me.

And I think that means that I am not doing something particularly novel, even if the character herself is novel, and that I'm still conforming to these rules, but I do find them incredibly helpful.

-Well, we're going to turn it over to the audience soon, but I was very curious.

You know, we talked about this a little bit backstage, but how would George-- -See, you talk about German literature and someone-- -I know.

I shouldn't have brought up Thusnelda.

-[ Laughter ] I'm curious how George and Kelly would get along.

What would they think of each other?

-Sorry.

What?

-How would George and Kelly get along?

What would they think of each other?

-Kelly would love George.

I think the question is what George would think of?

She'd be baking him cookies, asking him all kinds of questions.

-Yeah, she'd get him with the cookies.

I think George would admire her tenacity.

-Mm.

-I think he would admire her principled need to solve things.

-They'd be quite a pair, partner-wise if they ever partnered up.

-Well, there we go.

-There you go.

-Next book right there.

-George Cross.

-Tim Sullivan: There you go, Reese Witherspoon and... -Yes.

Yeah, who would -- Do people ask you who would play George Cross?

-Yeah.

All the time.

-Do you have a good answer?

-None of your business.

-[ Laughter ] We'll find out one day when we see him on screen.

-But no, I think the thing about George is, George doesn't have gut instincts about a case.

He doesn't theorize, he doesn't hypothesize, but he's very happy for other people too.

He's very happy to listen to it.

He's very happy to kind of listen and see if it will push him in a certain way, so he's not closed in that way.

I think they'd get on in a circumspect kind of way.

-What would George think of Dolly Parton?

-He wouldn't know who she was.

He'd ask if she played the organ.

-Well, before we turn it over to the audience, you both have read each other's books.

Is there anything that you would like to know about each other's books that we haven't touched on in this conversation?

-Oh, what a great question.

Tim?

-[ Laughter ] -Put you on the spot as the moderator.

-That's what you do when you're put on, you try to pass it, pass it back.

-[ Laughter ] -Can you give me a few minutes?

-Yeah.

-Spiegel: Absolutely.

-We can find some audience questions.

-Spiegel: Yes.

-Yeah.

-Spiegel: And we won't do a lightning round, because I know that's everyone's worst nightmare, but maybe turn it to the audience for a few questions, -let them mull that last one.

-Yes.

-Okay.

-[ Laughter ] -Hi.

I'm curious if either or both of you have favorite other authors in this genre.

I recently got obsessed with reading Tana French books.

-[ Gasps ] That was my answer.

-That was my answer.

-No, really?

-I'm reading "Broken Harbor".

It's in my hotel room.

-I'm reading "Broken Harbor".

-Yeah.

I love her.

-How weird is that?

-Yeah, that's our three favorites.

Tana French, by the way.

-Yeah, she's great.

-She was asked about her Dublin murder series, which was her first series, I absolutely -- "The Likeness" is maybe one of my favorites, but I love the Cal Hooper series, which was her more recent series as well, -which she just wrote.

-She's a really good writer.

In the one I'm reading at the moment, at the beginning, it's the detail that I like.

And there are some George moments with the detective where this woman is talking about her sister.

Her sister's husband's been murdered and her sister is seriously ill.

And when the sister was talking about having an alarm system put in, she said I instead of we.

-Mm.

-I thought, "Oh, that's really interesting."

And he picks up on that really early, so... -Lauren Nossett: Yeah.

-Great.

-Question for Tim.

I was wondering if you could speak to the difference between writing novels versus screenwriting and directing a mystery novel.

I grew up watching Jeremy Brett "Sherlock".

-She grew up.

-Absolutely adore.

So that piqued my interest.

But I imagine that they're extremely different processes.

-Yeah.

No, they are.

I mean, I think that you've got many more obligations and constraints when you write a movie or a TV, because money, you know.

[ Clears throat ] And also when I came to write the first book, I think the rhythms are different.

So when you write a movie, every single movie in the world, even if it's 24 hours long, like "The Odyssey", I didn't say that.

Even if it's a long movie, is divided into three acts.

No one said you should do that.

It's just the way it's evolved.

If you go back and analyze movies, they all have three acts.

Books aren't like that.

They kind of have acts, but they're different.

And I found that when I first wrote the book, because I'd worked in TV as well my writing was very episodic.

The rhythm was very episodic, almost as if there was a commercial break coming up.

And I tried that in my first novel.

Apparently, no one was interested in advertising.

But yeah, so the rhythms are very different, and I think you've got to get used to that.

And also in a screenplay, it's very much an authorial voice because you're telling people how you want your movie to appear.

You can't do that in books I learned very early on.

You're not supposed to have an authorial voice.

As for directing, you know, directing Jeremy was just a treat.

I mean he was-- I loved, loved Jeremy.

And I'll tell you one brief story.

I mean, he was brilliant, but sort of walked right out there.

And as a director, your job was to let him go and then rein him back.

And he always, if we brought another lead actor in, which we did every episode, there would always be this slight standoff between them.

We had this lovely actor called Anthony Valentine playing this Swiss villain called Baron Gruner, who had a habit of marrying young women and then killing them.

And it was their first scene.

It was like five pages of dialogue, a lot of dialogue.

And it was my first -- I was like 29.

It was my first "Sherlock".

And I was very young.

I knew everyone in the crew, but I was just the boy.

And when Anthony came in, Jeremy went [gasps].

"I've had an idea."

And I went, "Oh, okay, what is it?"

And he pointed to above the door where there were two swords.

And he said, "When Baron Gruner comes in, I jump up.

I get the swords off the wall."

They were ten feet in the air.

"I get the swords off the wall.

I give him the sword.

And we both do the scene like that."

-[ Laughter ] And I'm thinking... [ Mouths words ] And so, and all my crew who know me are going, "How's he going to get out of this one?"

And I went, "Oh, Jeremy, it's brilliant."

And he went, "Isn't it?"

And I went, "Yeah, but here's the thing.

The swords are invisible.

Jeremy went, "Oh!

The boy's a genius."

Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

-This question is for Tim.

Were you involved in the process for choosing the narrator for the audiobook?

And, what went into the idea of like, what somebody on the spectrum sounds like and -- or did you write in a manner that the inner monologue and any dialogue would just anybody could read it, and it would be portrayed as someone that's on the spectrum?

-Yeah.

I mean, I don't write with the audiobook in mind.

And to be honest with you, when I started, I didn't really have any input.

And the first reader who was lovely put his price up by a couple of hundred quid.

So the publisher decided to move on.

I think maybe I should have -- But we got a new -- The problem with that is you don't want to disrupt you know, the listener's enjoyment.

But I'm very happy with Finlay who's done the last six books, does it very well.

I don't like people doing accents when they do books.

I have a bit of a problem with that, but I think that the job is to relay.

It's not a radio play.

The job is to relay the book as written.

And I think I'm fortunate that my one does that very well.

But I will be honest with you, no, I don't consider the audio book at all when I write.

I think I wouldn't know how to.

I mean, I can't listen to fiction.

I can listen to nonfiction, but I can't listen to fiction.

I just go off on one, if I'm listening to fiction.

-Lauren, did you -- I loved -- I was actually listening to "Indie Darling" partly on audio, and I loved your reader.

-Do you write?

-She's phenomenal.

So the publisher will send auditions from four to five different narrators.

And because "Indie Darling", Kelly Williams, she's from the South, and part of her character is she has this Southern accent that she plays up.

I'm also from the South.

I'm originally from Georgia.

I've lived in Virginia, and Tennessee, and now in Nashville.

And a lot of people don't have accents, especially when you're in the bigger cities.

And so finding someone who could portray an accent in a way that felt authentic, but also not grating, because southern accents, depending on where you are, certain people find that, and I'm not saying that I do, but certain people can find those accents grating.

So to find someone who could capture the voice of Kelly, and because voice actors are not only doing your main character, they are doing every other character who's speaking in your novel.

So the woman who's doing Kelly's voice is also doing all the male characters in the novel.

So to find someone that can breathe life into all of those characters is just really phenomenal.

And if I can plug the audiobook narrator, her name's Amara Jasper.

She does an absolutely phenomenal job, and I relisten to it.

It's the first time I've done this before the book came out, and I felt like I was listening to a different story.

She just breathes something extra into it.

-Spiegel: She really did it.

I think we have, unfortunately, we have time for one more question, so... -Okay, my question is for Tim.

Your character George reminds me a lot of the PBS show "Patience", which I really enjoy.

I'm not much of a reader.

This is actually my first book festival.

-Welcome.

-Welcome.

[ Applause ] -So my question is, to learn about George, what would be the first book you would suggest I read?

-I think that "The Dentist", the first book is fairly big on his condition.

It becomes less so as the books go on.

So I think if you wanted to know more about his condition that I would start with "The Dentist".

The first line, I always say the first line is kind of indicative of who he is and what he is.

And it says, "The young woman standing in front of George Cross was smiling.

He knew this because the corners of her mouth were turned upwards."

And that kind of sets you off.

Some people said I was a bit heavy-handed with the autism in that, but I don't care, because that's -- it's very important to me.

But thanks for asking.

-Well, thank you both.

And thank you all for being here and for reading.

-Thank you.

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