A WOODEN cabin with a luxurious hot tub on a private Scottish island is the setting for Rostrevor writer Claire McGowan’s latest thriller, Truth Truth Lie.
The idyllic setting seems to be the perfect location for a weekend reunion of old university friends until a party game leads to years of resentment bubbling to the surface, kicking off a sinister sequence of events.
The adults on the trip are invited to post three statements about themselves in a box, but one slip of paper contains three chilling threats.
“Everyone here has killed someone. There is no way off this island. You will all either kill – or be killed – here. One of these statements is a lie. But which one?”
With no phone reception and no way off the island, tension rises and secrets are spilled. Is there someone hiding on the island who wants them dead, or is one of the friends the murderer?
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A versatile writer, whose books have sold over a million copies worldwide, Claire’s first foray into the world of publishing was as a columnist for the Irish News’s ‘teen page’, Unplugged, when she was a 17-year-old student at Sacred Heart Newry.
“From I was about seven I wanted to write, though I never thought of novel writing as a job back then.
“The fortunate thing about writing is that you don’t need to invest any money in it - you just need a notebook and computer.
“I always wrote in my teens and thought that was a stupid hobby – I wish I had registered earlier that it was important for my future career.”
@clairemcgowanwriter From one, to two, to three a year and now back to one a year. Have you read any of these? booksbyme shelfie atth writersoftiktok thrillerwriter romance womensfiction author thrillertok romancetok
♬ a thousand years - Christina Perri
Having studied English and French at Oxford University, Claire published her first novel in 2012. Numerous bestsellers followed in the crime fiction genre, as well as her women’s fiction novels written under the pen name Eva Woods.
Claire admits that trips to the island of Islay in Scotland, staying in a cabin with “a very poor internet connection”, inspired her latest book.
“I was thinking, this is lovely… I wonder if you could kill someone here in the wood-fired hot tub?”
Thankfully, she spared her friends from playing a real-life version of Truth Truth Lie.
“We went away for my partner’s 40th birthday recently and my friends were saying it was like one of my books,” she laughs, not denying that gruesome thoughts and murder plots are never far from her mind.
@clairemcgowanwriter Don’t get into the wood-fired hot tub! Or eat the cake! Or really do anything on this spooky island. You might never get off… Truth Truth Lie out on May 21st. #islandnoir #truthtruthlie #clairemcgowan #atth #thrillerbooks #bookrecommendations #booktok
♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs - Skittlegirl Sound
Claire comes from a long line of successful Northern Irish crime writers – though she admits she didn’t consciously set out to write in that genre.
“I wrote a book and it just happened to have murder in it,” laughs Claire, who went on to run the UK’s first MA in Crime Writing at London’s City University for five years.
Currently a tutor on Faber Academy’s online Writing Crime short course, I ask her what are the most important ingredients of a crime novel?
“A strong story, with high stakes, big problems and a fast pace. Crime readers are quite fussy. They know what they like and they do not want to be bored at any point, so you need to keep motoring along.”
Structure and timelines are also important.
“I often include ‘flashforwards’ to create the setting for a mystery, so the reader knows something horribly wrong is going to happen,” she explains.
So, how did she go about planning Truth Truth Lie?
“Structure is the biggest thing that I always must figure out. So I might do a bit of planning as I go, thinking about timelines and things like that. But I don’t really plan my books out in advance because then I wouldn’t enjoy writing them. I like to start writing and see where it takes me.
“I knew this one was going to have a detective character because I kind of needed that flashforward aspect. Then I just needed to figure out who from the group of nine friends were going to give their viewpoint and, of course, who was going to get killed.”
The twist with Truth Truth Lie is that everyone is guilty of something. Claire reveals that true crime and news sites often inform and inspire her writing.
“Almost every day I look at the BBC website and there’s some kind of crazy crime that’s taken place.
“Strangely, after I had written all these accidental deaths in the book, I started noticing real life instances of people dying in similar circumstances.”
Emotions rather than gore interest Claire, and in Truth Truth Lie she explores themes of jealousy, infertility and infidelity to heighten the conflict between people and make an emotional connection to readers.
“I’m interested in the resentments that people have, even against their close friends - things like envy, wealth, jealousy, inferiority, or having kids.”
Crime readers are quite fussy. They know what they like and they do not want to be bored at any point, so you need to keep motoring along.
— Claire McGowan
Claire has also had radio plays broadcast on the BBC, including an adaptation of Joseph O’Connor’s novel Star of the Sea for Radio 4. She has several projects in development for TV, but it’s book writing that she finds “more rewarding”.
The London-based 43-year-old is keen not to be pigeonholed, and is not afraid to take risks - from her comedic venture Pride and Prejudice on Social Media to her literary fiction, This Could Be Us.
Inspired by her disabled brother, the latter is Claire’s most personal work to date. It tells the story of a woman who walks out on her family, leaving her husband to take care of their disabled child.
As well as just finishing a new thriller, she has set herself the new challenge of writing in the genre of dystopia.
“It’s quite different and it’s taken me quite a long time. If I’m writing a new thriller, I’ve always pitched it to my editor and we’ve discussed it quite a bit. I quite enjoy writing things I’m not contracted to.
“It’s quite risky, but I prefer the freedom of not telling anyone what it is and figuring it out for myself.”
While she is taking a break from her north of Ireland-set Paula McGuire procedural crime series for now, Claire doesn’t rule out future novels being located in her home country.
“I think it was Ian Rankin who years ago remarked there wasn’t as much crime fiction coming out of Northern Ireland compared to Scotland, suggesting maybe it was because the violence was too recent. I think now it’s long enough that more people are working out our past through fiction.
“I’ve written a few TV things that are more specifically about the Troubles, and there’s definitely a lot more to be said about that time.”
