An Interview with Louise Minchin

Tell us your story – when and how did you start writing fiction?

I am a journalist who presented BBC Breakfast for over 20 years.

I have always been an avid reader and was determined before I started working on BBC Breakfast, that one day when the time was right, I would write fiction, specifically thrillers.

Having already written two non-fiction books, I started Isolation Island the moment I was evacuated from the I’m a Celebrity castle in North Wales in the midst of a once in hundred-year storm.  In the beginning I had the setting, which is a derelict monastery on a remote island on the Northwest coast of Scotland, and a cast of characters that I knew wouldn’t get on. I knew who was going to die and why and I thought I knew who had killed them until I was at the end of my first draft and realised that I had got it wrong, and that someone else entirely was behind it all.

What’s the one line or paragraph you’re most proud of in your shortlisted book?

‘Mac, I have something to tell you.’

It is the last line of the book, and I can’t give too much away for fear of spoilers but for I am proud of its brevity and how much it says with so few words, and I love that it opens the door for readers to make up their own mind about what they think happens next.

Let’s say you’re going rogue: which crime fiction villain would you most enjoy being (just for research, of course)?

I would love to be Justice Lawrence Wargrave from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. He is unbelievably intelligent and manipulative, and I admire his motive (if you believe him), which is a search for justice.

Which writers have influenced your own writing the most?

Daphne Du Maurier, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Kate Mosse.

You’re cast in a gritty crime drama. Are you the detective, suspect or the wildcard witness?

I would like to play against type and be the wildcard witness.

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak.

What inspired you to take the leap and write your first novel — was there a moment that sparked it?

I had been planning to write a thriller about a young investigative journalist called Lauren, which I was going to send into a gritty northern newsroom, but I changed my mind when I was ejected from the I’m a Celeb castle in Wales. I knew when I was being driven away in the middle of the night through howling winds and lashing rain that a reality show disrupted by a violent storm would the perfect backdrop for a thriller, and that I would send Lauren in undercover to pursue one of her fellow contestants.

What’s been the biggest surprise (or challenge) about publishing your debut book?

My biggest surprise is being nominated for the McDermid Debut Book Award. I never imagined it would be nominated for any prize and am totally over the moon.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone writing their first crime novel, what would it be?

Read, read, read.