Shari Lapena reveals how the terror of losing a child inspired her ‘gut-wrenching’ bestseller

The fear that grips every mother: Shari Lapena reveals how the terror of losing a child inspired her ‘gut-wrenching’ bestseller

‘Anyone who is a parent will have had that moment either where they have wished they could leave their child alone for five minutes to run to the store, or where they have done it and regretted it. It’s one of those situations where you think: there but for the grace of God,’ says Canadian author Shari Lapena. It’s a feeling that courses through The Couple Next Door, Lapena’s twisty, gut-churning novel that went on to become the bestselling fiction title of 2017 in the UK.

Canadian author Shari Lapena. Lapena didn’t take up writing until she was 38. Before that she worked as a teacher and a lawyer

Her premise was simple: a couple invited to a dinner party next door decide to leave their six-month-old baby at home, taking their baby monitor with them and checking in on their tot every half an hour. Yet Anne and Marco Conti soon discover their baby has gone missing from her crib, and they are first blamed for their negligence and then fall under suspicion for her disappearance.

While the plot has echoes of the Madeleine McCann case, the story ‘wasn’t inspired by that at all’, says Lapena. She did, however, draw on her own feelings of loss. ‘I had about four years when I was struggling with miscarriages,’ she says, ‘and that fear of losing a child – well, I could draw on my own experiences of that.’

It is the depiction of Anne’s postpartum depression and the searing guilt she feels at the disappearance of her child that give the novel its raw, emotional edge. ‘When I finally had a child, I was a very nervous mother. I would lean over the crib and watch my son because I was afraid he would stop breathing. I was sort of primed to expect something bad to happen, but luckily nothing did. Maybe that’s why I wrote a book about losing a baby, albeit as a thrilling premise, because for me it was a real gut-wrenching experience.’

Initially, there were fears the novel wouldn’t sell due to the already saturated market of domestic suspense (thanks to hits such as Gone Girl and Girl On A Train), ‘but ever since reality TV, I think we’ve all become quite voyeuristic. We love getting behind closed doors to see what’s going on inside other people’s homes,’ says Lapena.

It’s certainly true of her latest thriller, Someone We Know, another twist-filled page-turner. Set in the quiet fictional town of Aylesford in upstate New York, the action starts with Raleigh Sharpe, a teenager who has been breaking into his neighbours’ homes and hacking into their computers, learning a few of their secrets along the way. When his mother discovers what he’s been up to, she sends anonymous letters of apology to his victims, only to discover that one has been murdered. An investigation reveals that none of the respectable neighbours is quite who they seem.

‘I read this story about a teenage boy who had had his wi-fi cut off at home and so he broke into someone’s house to borrow theirs,’ says Lapena. ‘I stuck a murder in there and just took the story on from there.’

‘I read this story about a teenage boy who had had his wi-fi cut off at home and so he broke into someone’s house to borrow theirs,’ says Lapena. ‘I stuck a murder in there and just took the story on from there’

‘I read this story about a teenage boy who had had his wi-fi cut off at home and so he broke into someone’s house to borrow theirs,’ says Lapena. ‘I stuck a murder in there and just took the story on from there’

It is set to join Lapena’s previous three thrillers as another bestseller, an impressive haul considering that she didn’t take up writing until she was 38. Before that she worked as a teacher and a lawyer – ‘and I did a lot of bankruptcy work, which was either really boring or really stressful’, she says. ‘I once had to drive onto the runway with a rifle to seize a plane when it landed because someone hadn’t paid the bill for the engine.’

Now 58, she is happy living a quieter life in Toronto with her husband Manuel and their two children, and to leave all the excitement to her characters. Although as ever with Lapena, there is one final twist: she never plots her novels. ‘It drives my agent crazy,’ she admits. ‘But I figure if I don’t know who the killer is while I’m writing, then the reader won’t guess either.’ 

‘Someone We Know’ is published by Bantam Press on July 25, priced £12.99. Shari Lapena will be appearing at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival on July 19. Public voting for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award is now open. Cast your vote at theakstons.co.uk before Sunday

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk