The Tangled Mane follows an undercover investigator at an elite country club who is caught up in a case of theft that takes a dark turn when a wealthy bride-to-be is found dead in her bathtub. What was your inspiration for the mystery that must be unraveled?

The inspiration was thinking of an opening death which is visually startling but at the same time ambiguous – it’s not immediately clear whether it was an accident, suicide or murder.

Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?

I’m obsessed with my dog, Otto. He’s always with me and so I gave Cally that same opportunity to have a dog whom she adores and who adores her back.

What was the hardest part about writing a mystery story, where you constantly have to give just enough to keep the mystery alive until the big reveal?

It’s obvious who commits the murder in my novel so I wanted to show enough of the murderer’s backstory for the reader to understand why. I also held back a huge secret until the very end which I hope comes as a real surprise to the reader. It’s hard to judge things after a while so I’m always glad when readers say they didn’t see it coming.

When will book two be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?

The second book is out this April and sees Cally going undercover in a girls’ convent school run by nuns where a charred body has been discovered, along with some drugs, down a recently revealed oubliette. Cally investigates whether the two incidents are related and if they have any link to the suicide of a pupil in the 1990s.

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