The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

S.J. Watson Interviews Sophie Hannah

S.J. Watson is the New York Times bestselling author of Before I Go to Sleep.

SJ: In The Monogram Murders, you channeled the voice of the legendary Hercule Poirot. How was writing a longstanding character invented by someone else different from writing your own?

Sophie: Not as different as you might think. I know Poirot so well, from reading all the Christie Poirot novels lots of times. In a way, writing this book felt similar to writing about a real person I was very familiar with. It was a bit like writing an episode in the biography of someone I greatly admire.

SJ: What is your all-time favorite Agatha Christie mystery?

Sophie: That s a tough one. Currently, Sparkling Cyanide - so clever and surprising - but I change my mind all the time. My favorite Poirot novel is After The Funeral.

SJ: What kind of research did you do prior to sitting down and writing The Monogram Murders?

Sophie: I reread all the Christie Poirots, and I booked a week's holiday at Greenway, Agatha Christie's former holiday home in Devon. I hoped that inspiration would strike if I went there, and it did. On the first night there, I propped myself up in bed with my laptop, about five metres away from an enormous portrait of Agatha, and starting putting together my plot. By the time I left at the end of the week, I had the whole story in my mind and on my computer - every last detail. If I were a superstitious person, I would say that Agatha helped me...but of course I'm far too sensible and rational to suggest that! (Or am I?)

SJ: What do you think are some of the quintessential traits of an Agatha Christie mystery? Did you try to incorporate any into The Monogram Murders?

Sophie: I tried to incorporate what I think of as all the crucial ingredients of a Christie/Poirot novel: a gleeful delight in storytelling; an outlandish/apparently impossible opening scenario that is later revealed to be eminently possible; the perfect combination of ease and pleasure for the reader with a challenging intellectual puzzle; a profound intelligence that at no point makes the reader feel stupid or condescended to; the centrality of motive and psychology; the combination of a light/feel-good experience for readers with a sophisticated awareness of the dark depravity of human beings. Christie, more than any other crime writer, is able to include polar opposites in her novels - light-dark, easy-difficult - without either ever detracting from the other.

SJ: Do you think Agatha Christie would have been pleased with The Monogram Murders?

Sophie: I can't speak for her. I fervently hope so! Wherever she is, I hope she's pleased!