“The perfect crime exists,” admits Paula Hawkins, author of ‘Blind Spot,’ the new intrigue of the queen of ‘domestic noir’
“Putin is fooling himself, like most criminals.” Paula Hawkins (Harare, 1972), the British writer who established herself with ‘The Girl on the Train’ and is the publisher of ‘Blind Spot’ (Planet), assures it with a smile, without raising her voice or looking at it.
It is a commissioned ‘thriller’ about friendship, lies, love and gender violence that deals with a classic theme of crime fiction, the possibility of the perfect crime. Something “achievable” in the writer’s opinion. “I suppose the perfect crime exists from the moment we assume there are crimes without punishment,” says Hawkins, for whom forgiveness “is above vengeance and vengeance.”
‘Blind Spot’ stars three inseparable friends from childhood: Edie, Ryan and Jake, who will be brutally murdered, giving rise to a plot full of twists and suspense that aims to convey to the reader the ‘claustrophobia’ of confinement , a period in which Hawkins wrote the novel.
“I always try to get into the mind of a criminal. It’s one of the most interesting aspects of my job,” says the writer, ex-journalist and queen of ‘domestic noir’ – a genre in which crime takes place at home and features female characters. takes place-, and for whom “we are all potential criminals under certain circumstances.”
“I’m not interested in police or forensics; I want to know why certain people commit certain acts,” he says. “I’m interested in ordinary people with broken and twisted lives,” warns Hawkins, moving again on that “beyond fragile” line between love and hate and with characters teetering on the brink of despair. It puts them in a lonely house on a cliff in Scotland full of windows and in which you can see what is happening from the outside.
The author of “The Girl on the Train” has not stopped to think about the 40 million readers her previous novels have accumulated. “When you write about crimes, the reader expects the solution and almost always the punishment. But you can’t stop thinking about what your readers would like. All you have to do is stay true to the story at hand,” he says.
We never know who we think we know. We all have secrets. We all have fears that we cannot confide to others. If we think we know someone, it will never be complete,” he says.
As he usually does, Hawkins puts the protagonists in an extreme situation “where you can see how someone acts”. He knows this causes his characters to be “often disliked and a little annoying”. “It’s hard to empathize with my characters, it’s not easy to appreciate them. If my kids are like that, I’d classify them more as complexes, although this time I even think some of them are too complicated. But the story so demanded it,” Hawkins justifies himself, admitting that he created his “darkest” character in this novel: Edie.
The lie is the main issue of a story that makes it very clear that ‘who lies to himself’. And one of the great liars of these difficult times is Vladimir Putin. “He deceives himself and deceives us, like many politicians, who convince themselves that they are doing the right thing, and as most criminals do,” he says.
“Self-deception is natural. We’re all unreliable tellers of our stories. We’re all hiding something and forgetting what we actually did to rewrite our history,” he says.
‘Blind Spot’ is the result of an invitation to Hawkins from UK charity The Reading Agency to join the Quick Reads programme, which promotes literacy and reading promotion in the UK, particularly in prisons, hospitals and education centers and among young people people who seem to have an aversion to reading. “They ask a dozen authors for a piece of no more than 20,000 words. That’s what I did, but I don’t try to stop being myself,” she explains with satisfaction. “It is intended for those who have difficulty reading long stories. Therefore, it is a book designed to be read in a few hours, ”he clarifies.
It already has a production company interested in buying the rights to turn it into a movie and without daring to push anything forward, the author believes that the scenery itself and the plot are “worthy of a horror movie”.
Source: La Verdad
I am David Jackson, a highly experienced professional in the news industry. I have been working as an author at Today Times Live for over 10 years, and specialize in covering the entertainment section. My expertise lies in writing engaging stories that capture readers’ attention and deliver timely information about the latest developments.
