The Lodger is out now!

Two years after The Hitchhiker dropped on Audible and pissed everyone off with its cliffhanger ending, the resolution is here. For now only as an audiobook, but I’m hoping The Lodger follows in its predecessor’s footsteps and gets a print release down the line as well.

But for now the story of the Driver is complete. I’m really proud of The Lodger, but it’s a very different beast to The Hitchhiker (and the not-so-secret middle chapter of this trilogy, The Caretaker). Early on my idea for this book was to devote it entirely to a Maggie-vs-the-Driver cat and mouse game, but the more I developed that the less interesting I found it. The Driver is at his best when he’s playing ambiguous games with people, always with the twisted goal of a kind of self-actualisation. Maggie, meanwhile, is a shoot-first-ask-questions-later vigilante without much time for those games. The moment these two characters are back in each other’s orbit, the showdown begins. It wasn’t enough to sustain a full book.

Early on I’d had the idea that this final instalment would open with a prologue that detailed the Driver pulling an unhappily married couple into one of his games, but framing it as a kind of couple’s counselling. I thought this could be a ghoulishly funny way to open the story, but as I developed I started to find it more compelling than the straightforward action/hunt story I’d had in mind. What if, then, the couple’s counselling was the bulk of the story, but one which we know at some point will dovetail with Maggie’s ongoing hunt for the Driver? Was there a way to make these threads work?

What appealed to me about this was that it would make The Lodger a book entirely its own, rather than a simple part two/three to a pre-existing story. It is that, of course, but I like that it also devotes a lot of time to new characters and ideas. It also gave me the chance to write about toxic relationships and the ways that couples are so uniquely placed to hurt each other and how they often delude themselves about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. This felt uncomfortable and raw and different, and allowed the book to step into the realm of black comedy more than any of the earlier ones did.

If I’m totally honest I still don’t know if this was the right move, or if it is what readers wanted or expected from a sequel to The Hitchhiker. But the fact of it is that this was the story that felt most right to me, and one in the end I’m proud of. And if you’re familiar with the bulk of my thrillers then I think you’ll get a kick out of the way this brings back characters and plotlines that have been around for a while. It’s sort of two books in one, but I do hope they align enough to make it feel relatively cohesive.

The Retirement Plan will be screening at Port Shorts

Our short film, The Retirement Plan, will be making its festival premiere in Port Douglas on October 19 as part of the Port Shorts Film Festival. I can’t wait – Port Douglas is one of my favourite towns in the world (as anyone who’s read The Inheritance could probably guess) so I barely needed an excuse to fly up for the weekend. I’ll be at the festival with director John Erasmus and star Ayesha Gibson, so if you’re in the area come along, see the film, and say hi.

In Conversation with Matthew Ryan Davies

For Love Your Bookshop Day I’ll be doing an event at Escape Hatch Books in Kew, in conversation with the brilliant Matthew Ryan Davies. Matt is a good mate of mine but we’ve never done an event together so it should be a lot of fun. And if you haven’t yet, check out his latest The Broken Wave – it’s fantastic.

The event is free but bookings are essential. Register via 0490 902 527.

Craig Sisterson Interview

There’s no bigger advocate for Australian and New Zealand crime writing than Craig Sisterson, so it was an honour to chat with him for his long-running 9MM interview series, which has hosted a staggering range of well-known crime authors. We discussed my books of course, but also some of my more niche loves like Animorphs, Hannibal Lecter and Ned Kelly. Give it a read here.

Red Dragon Article

As part of the promotions for The Lecter Variations (there’s more to come, I haven’t forgotten about that book) I wrote another guest piece for InSession film, this time talking about what I see as the moment Hannibal Lecter truly became a franchise – the release of 2002’s Red Dragon. I don’t want to pre-empt too much, so you’ll have to read the article to see why I think that. Then read the book.

Rural Tour

I spoke in my last newsletter about how wild the past couple of months have been, juggling book week events with the book tour for Hitchhiker. Well it didn’t end there. Back in September I went on a very quick rural tour, hitting four towns in three days (one of them was Melbourne which is not rural but whatever).

The first three events in Wangaratta, Benalla and Albury were organised by Mark and Michelle from Booktique, a great local bookstore. I could not have felt more welcome across the board, and moments from this tour I’ll remember forever. I saw crochet squares themed after each of my books, got to try on a homemade Locksmith (from Andromache Between Worlds), heard from a reader who’d come from two and a half hours away to get all his books signed, and made a wonderful librarian’s day when, after she’d told me how much she loved all the books, I sneakily gave her a link to watch The Retirement Plan early.

It was one of the first times that many of the people present hadn’t just read one or two of the books, or just come along out of interest, but were real fans who knew my characters, world and mythology well. And man, did that ever leave me with a spinning head. I can’t thank you all enough for making the trip so damn special.

Then, worn out but still buzzing, it was back to Melbourne for one more event – a chat at the Chestnut Tree Bookshop in Footscray courtesy of the Bad Writer’s Club. This was another fantastic evening but by the time it was done I was ready to crawl into bed and pass out.

High-Rise and Andromache in the Dark edits are done

Interspersed with all the events of the past couple of months, I’ve been doing my best to get two books edited up. This wasn’t always easy, especially given how different High-Rise and Andromache in the Dark are.

But the headline, coming out of this all, was that I’m so proud of them both. High-Rise is basically The Hunted set in a derelict commission flat. It’s action packed and wild and if you like my books it brings back quite a few old friends. Andromache in the Dark, of course, is the sequel to Andromache Between Worlds and it’s far darker, sadder and more complex than I thought I’d get away with.

Both are out next year. I can’t wait for you to read them.

And now that they’re done I’m officially starting on my new novel. I’m going to save what this one is all about until the next newsletter. But for now I’ll give you a title:

Backstory.

I wrote a screenplay and also a blog about the screenplay

I also spent a lot of last month writing a screenplay. This was because I needed something to cleanse the palate between edits on the books, and because I had an idea I really liked and soon was very caught up in.

It's called White Lies. It’s linked to one of my previous books – no points for guessing which, given the title. I have no idea if it has any chance of selling, but I loved writing it.

Read all about it here.

Recommendations

I’ve been a bit quiet on the recommendations front of late because honestly I haven’t had a lot to recommend. Edits and tour meant that I’ve been reading far less than usual and most every time I’ve gone to the movies or started a new TV show I haven’t been especially compelled.

But I did see Strange Darling the other day, and that was a real breath of fresh air. This is a tough film to talk much about as its cleverness lies in the ways that it regularly upends what you think is going on via a scrambled chronology that denies key context until we’re already set in our assumptions about what’s happening.

Short synopsis, it’s a cat and mouse game between a serial killer and a victim. It’s tight and punchy and stylish and boasts star-making performances from Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. More by accident than anything I ended up seeing the film a second time the day after I caught it at the movies, and liked it even more.

Strange Darling doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it certainly spins it in new and unexpected ways. Lately I’ve found so much so uninspiring – either hollow and cynical or pretentious and self-serious. Strange Darling is neither – it’s entertaining as hell while also leaving you with stuff to think about.

Just don’t read too much more about it before you go in.