Sunday, September 13, 2015

What is Catriona McPherson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Catriona McPherson, author of The Child Garden.

Her entry begins:
I had to leave twenty unread pages of Sophie Hannah’s magnificent The Monogram Murders when I got up this morning. (Yes, I read novels in bed on Tuesday mornings. And I call it working too.) I picked it up at Bloody Scotland last September after hearing Sophie speak about the honour/pressure of writing the first book featuring one of Dame Agatha’s characters to have been sanctioned by the Christie estate. There’s much more to the book than just this but I do have to say – she nailed it. The plot is quintessentially Christie: clever, convincing despite being truly bonkers, and hugely satisfying. The tone is pure Christie too. Not the Christie of the vicarage and the library – nor even the Orient Express – but one of the slyly nasty ones like The ABC Murders or...[read on]
About The Child Garden, from the publisher:
Eden was its name. “An alternative school for happy children.” But it closed in disgrace after a student’s suicide. Now it’s a care home, the grounds neglected and overgrown. Gloria Harkness is its only neighbor, staying close to her son who lives in the home, lighting up her life and breaking her heart each day.

When a childhood friend turns up at her door, Gloria doesn’t hesitate before asking him in. He claims a girl from Eden is stalking him and has goaded him into meeting near the site of the suicide. Only then, the dead begin to speak—it was murder, they say.

Gloria is in over her head before she can help it. Her loneliness, her loyalty, and her all-consuming love for her son lead her into the heart of a dark secret that threatens everything she lives for.
Visit Catriona McPherson's website.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson.

--Marshal Zeringue