Crime time: Two new and dynamic voices in crime fiction hit the road
Georgia Harper and Mercedes Mercier are new and exciting voices in crime fiction – and they are about to hit the road to tour Queensland.
Two of Australia’s most compelling new voices in crime fiction, Georgia Harper and Mercedes Mercier, are heading north this May for a Queensland tour celebrating their latest novels.
Harper’s novel Dove, set in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, explores a close-knit community pushed to breaking point, while Mercier’s The Couples Retreat takes us to Kangaroo Island for a twisty, compulsive destination thriller where no one is as perfect as they seem.
Both authors bring sharp psychological insight and real-world experience to their work, crafting stories that examine what lies beneath the surface of friendships, partnerships and communities – and what happens when those foundations begin to crack. Read our exclusive Q&A with the two authors.
Both your books show how things can go wrong in close communities or groups. Why do you like writing about these kinds of settings?
MM: I think old friendships are perfect for crime novels – people who know your past, your old secrets and who you used to be.
GH: In small communities, the stakes feel higher when it comes to social acceptance and cohesion. Memories are long and mistakes are amplified. There is nowhere to run. Dove explores what happens to women who, through their refusal to adhere to predetermined social roles, sit on the fringes of their “tribe” – the freedoms and the punishments, which can result.
You both have experience working in areas related to crime. How has that influenced your writing?
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MM: I’ve always been interested in what makes people tick. When I started working in the criminal justice system, the subject of this interest quickly became offenders and why they do what they do. I’ve had over a decade of exposure to the background of offenders, and I like to bring this to my “villain” characters to ensure they are as well-rounded, fleshed out and believable as my protagonists.
GH: I rarely sit down to consciously draw on what I have learned through working with offenders and victim-survivors (and I certainly actively avoid using any real cases). At this stage, I think I carry much of my knowledge implicitly, and it rises up at the right time in telling the story.
Power and control are important themes in both books. Why did you want to explore these?
MM: I like to explore who wields power and control and how this can look. I like to get readers questioning the reasons why certain people innately have power, for instance, because they were born into generational wealth, or why they have control.
GH: My work is always an exploration of dominion – of human beings over each other, other animals and the planet. Dove explores how we take back the power that has been stolen from us, by harnessing the power that is already within us, and the desperate measures people will take to regain control.
Relationships are central to both stories. What interests you about writing complicated relationships?
MM: Relationships are a vital and central part of the human experience. I love observing people and how they interact with each other, and complicated relationships provide a wealth of motivation, secrets and tension.
GH: So many aspects of being human are about being in relationships with others. We might be able to cure disease and launch people into space, but we (people) mess up our kids, cheat on our spouses, become estranged from our loved ones, break up decades-long friendships over a misunderstanding … It is as though each generation is being asked to learn and perform brain surgery for the first time. Endless fodder.
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Secrets play a key role in both novels. Why are they so important in crime fiction?
MM: Secrets are one of the most important parts of crime novels – they are the engine that keeps the story progressing. Secrets create mystery and build tension and suspense. They are also important for character depth and often motivation, as characters who hide information from the reader can perform the function of providing clues and red herrings.
GH: Secrets serve so many functions: covering shameful deeds; gaining strategic advantage; preserving social harmony; maintaining control over the private aspects of life; and, perhaps most interesting to me, protecting ourselves from our own thoughts, feelings and acts – the ones that don’t align with who we think we are. Crime fiction is fertile ground for exploring the hidden sides of human behaviour.
Both books touch on real social issues. How do you approach writing about these in a crime story?
MM: I like to do a lot of research when I include a social issue in a book. I tend to write about issues that interest me, or that I feel are current and important. In The Couples Retreat I wanted to explore coercive control, as I have seen its rise over the years of my work, and wanted to show how it can happen to anyone.
GH: Writing is a way for me to explore the big issues. I ask questions of myself, and of readers. We’re having a conversation together. Hashing things over. Holding them up to the light. Finding new angles together. Crime is the skeleton over which I drape the issues – a body, giving substance to the conceptual.
Your settings are very vivid and specific. How do you use place to shape your stories?
MM: Writing a setting does not come naturally to me. I find my books are shaped more by characters and plot, and those are the aspects that I get down in my first drafts. On about draft five I layer in setting – and that is usually when I make a trip to the place it’s set in, so I can be fully immersed in the surroundings and to help me portray it.
GH: Dove is set in the beautiful Sunshine Coast hinterland, on a permaculture farm. I have always had an affinity for animals and nature, and I weave these aspects through my storylines. I can almost feel my mind trying to connect with the land on which the story is written.
Your main characters are not perfect and are still figuring things out. Why was that important?
MM: I like to read and write characters that I can relate to, and I don’t believe perfect characters are that interesting to read. Give me a messed-up protagonist with secrets, regrets and insecurities any day!
GH: It’s easy to look at other people, from the outside, and think they have it all together. I often remind myself that every one of us is doing this for the first time. I think we all enjoy connecting with characters who don’t have it worked out. It is reassuring to know we are not alone in that!
Dove by Georgia Harper, Penguin Books, $34.99; and The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier, Penguin Books, $34.99.
See the author duo at Rockhampton Northside Library, May 11, 10am; Yeppoon Library, May 11, 6pm; Gladstone Library, May 12, 11am; Bundaberg Library, May 12, 6pm; Hervey Bay Regional Gallery, May 13, 5.30pm; Noosa Library, May 14, 6pm; Redcliffe Library, May 15, 11.30am; Avid Reader Brisbane, May 15, 6pm.
avidreader.com.au/pages/13878-CoerciveControlandtheCrimeGenre-MercedesMercierGeorgiaHarper
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