Agatha Christie never wrote books that just started with a dead body, and a 'Let's find out who the murderer is', which is kind of mysterious but not that mysterious. She always started with, 'How can this thing be happening;… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
I am trying to write novels for properly clever people, but I also want them to be proper novels that also stick in a… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
“That's not me talking, it's your inner voice. I'd attempt the accent, only I don't speak low self-esteem. It's a language I've never needed… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
“What they'd got was a fat, balding academic who bandied about the phrase "family annihilation", especially when there were cameras pointed at him, and… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
No highbrow literary type would ever say 'Moby Dick' is good but it's just about a whale, or a Jane Austen would be important… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
There are very few well-adjusted people in my books. But I do think that's normal. Because everyone does have their issues and hang-ups. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
With me, even if my life depended on it, I wouldn't be able to cry. Not with somebody there. Because even if I'm talking… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
