From the Booking Desk:
Meeting Alex Marwood when she traveled to the States for her first Bouchercon was such a joy, I can’t really even put it into words. This was before she made a huge splash with The Wicked Girls — by coincidence the ebook version of that stunning debut novel is currently on sale for $1.99, if you have not yet had the pleasure — and Alex was as warm and gracious as a human can possibly be. Alex and I stay in touch and occasionally find ourselves catching up and kvetching on Instant Messenger. Alex is knowledgeable, opinionated, and funny as hell. It has been a bit since we have had a new book by Alex Marwood here in the US, but The Poison Garden was recently released in the UK and it is a must read. Publication domestically will happen early next year, but I can say that this book will most definitely be one of my Top Reads of 2019. I was thrilled when Alex agreed to answer our Composite Sketch questions and even more thrilled when I read the answers. This is some quality stuff, folks. Enjoy!
Name: Alex Marwood
Location: London, United Kingdom
This person from my personal life is such an inspiration:
My friend Dr. John Stonehouse. An amazing person with the biggest, most far-ranging brain I’ve ever known. He graduated in history from Oxford, then decided he wanted to do “something useful”, so he went back to school and took the science A Levels he didn’t take the first time round, and became a Doctor of Entomology and set about saving the world one fruit fly at a time.
The bugger of it is that a decade ago he caught cerebral malaria while stopping off to sort out a problem with a project in Senegal, en route from Helmand to London. He texted me to say he was heading for the airport in the morning, then died in his hotel bed in the night. It was the most dreadful shock, and the most terrible loss to the world. But still he inspires me on a daily basis, because he taught me so much about how to think, and how to remain curious and how not to fall for vogueish ideas when facts are so much more powerful. And he most important thing about him was the way he managed not just to be cleverer than anybody else – he literally made everyone around him cleverer. And I carry that with me wherever I go.
One of the people I admire most in the crime fiction community is:
Ruth Rendell. Well, her Barbara Vine standalone persona, mostly. What a writer. I read A Fatal Inversion as a young thing with that glowing, heart-thudding OMG this is what I want to do when I grow up feeling. My God, she was a good writer. And what was really amazing was the speed at which she produced stuff. I’m lucky if I get a book done in two years; she was producing these while writing the Wexford series too. So admiration mixed with shame. Ho hum.
STALKER ALERT! If this fictional character were real, they would likely need to get a restraining order against me:
Ohh, easy! Saga Noren Länskrim Malmö from The Bridge. If you’ve not seen the original Scandi version of this magnificent show, watch it now and thank me later. Seriously, I don’t think there’s ever been anything on TV to match. Saga – an intensely emotional portrayal of high-functioning autism from the wonderfully tough yet vulnerable actress Sofia Helin – moves you beyond words, she really does. I did a lovely Crime Festival, Crimetime Gottland, a few years ago and it became a bit of a running gag that my escorts were actually minders contracted to stop me cutting and running for the Danish border in search of her.
People are always surprised that I am a fan of this individual (singer, actor, or artist):
Oh, has to be Luann de Lesseps, aka The Cowness, from The Real Housewives of New York City. I could watch her going “be cool, don’t be, like… uncool” and singing Money Can’t Buy You Class all day.
My personal catch phrase is (or should be):
“I think it’s a bit more complicated than that”.
I love your catch phrase. Much of life is more complicated than we want to make it out to be. Yes, at times it is simpler, too, but there are more shades of gray in life than we want to admit.
Alex Marwood is a brilliant author, and I’m delighted to see her profiled here. Her next book won’t hit the U.S. soon enough. I think I MUST order my copy from the U.K.