Having enjoyed a big hit with The Couple Next Door, the author has just submitted her 11th crime novelShari Lapena's Getting Away with Murder features 'a greedy couple sadly lacking in morals' Sun Jul 19 2026 - 04:13 • 4 MIN READTell us about your new book, Getting Away with Murder.It’s about a greedy couple sadly lacking in morals who try to get away with murder. Your protagonists have been compared to the Macbeths. Was the play an inspiration? I find Shakespeare is always an inspiration. Macbeth was in my mind for this one. The Macbeths’ greed and ambition led them to murder. Remember how Lady Macbeth couldn’t stop seeing the blood on her hands? I wanted to explore how the act of murder might change my characters. It is 10 years since your debut thriller, The Couple Next Door, became the UK’s bestselling fiction title of 2016. Tell us about it, and what it was like to have such an explosive start to your career. And what’s the latest on the TV adaptation?It was life-changing. I’d been writing about 15 years by then and had published two literary comedies. But when I wrote The Couple Next Door, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I got a new agent within hours of submitting the manuscript by email and the book sold in New York very quickly after that, and then in territories all over the world. It became a huge bestseller. It is currently optioned with a UK production company, but I can’t say much more about it than that at the moment. You lived in Toronto. Was setting a book in New York a challenge?Not particularly. I’ve been going to NY fairly regularly since I started writing crime. I love to walk along the streets and look up at the brownstones and wonder what’s going on inside – so far, no one has invited me inside one. Your first two novels Things Go Flying (2008) and Happiness Economics (2011) were literary comedies. Tell us about them. Things Go Flying is about a man who is so afraid of death that he seeks out not a psychotherapist, but a philosopher, to help him deal with it. Happiness Economics is about a stalled poet who is married to a very successful celebrity economist. But then he meets his muse … and basically all hell breaks loose. How did you hit on the thriller as your chosen genre? And was it easy to adapt as a writer?I’ve always read and loved thrillers. It’s what I gravitate toward on TV – crime shows. But I didn’t think I could write one, because I thought they had to be thoroughly plotted ahead of time and I don’t plot. So I put off writing a thriller for much longer than I should have. It was much easier to make the switch than I expected; I’d spent many years learning the craft already.You’re more of a pantser than a plotter?I am absolutely a panster. I can never think of what’s going to happen until I’m writing. That’s how I get to know the characters and figure out what happens next.‘The greatest threat to the peace of the characters is the truth.’ How true is this observation of your various works?That’s a fairly astute observation for most crime novels, I think!Is there a common thread to your thrillers? Suburban paranoia? Domestic secrets? Psychological insight?I think they’re all a bit different, but they are similar in that I use multiple points of view to get into what’s going on with the characters psychologically.You’re a former lawyer and English teacher. Do those careers feed into the work at all?Not really. I never did any criminal law. And I became an English teacher because I love reading and literature, rather than the other way around.How do you handle success and the public aspect of being a writer?It’s taken some getting used to, but it’s all good. The biggest difference is the number of demands that are made on you as you become more successful. There is always more to do.Which projects are you working on?I just handed in my 11th crime novel to my agent, so I’ll be doing revisions on that soon.Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?Not exactly, but every time I travel, I’m interested in what authors are from a place, have lived there or written about it. What is the best writing advice you have heard?Find your own voice.Who do you admire the most?Volodymyr Zelenskiy.You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?Either tax the rich, or outlaw fossil fuels and only allow renewables.Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?Book: A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz. TV show: The Pitt. Podcast: Book Off! with Joe Haddow. The most remarkable place you have visited?Maybe Istanbul. It’s so exotic. The Pera Palace – it’s a hotel there where Agatha Christie famously stayed.Your most treasured possession?I don’t think I have one.What is the most beautiful book that you own?I have a very old copy of The Three Musketeers with the most beautiful illustrations.Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?Shakespeare. And maybe Oscar Wilde.The best and worst things about where you live?I live on a farm in the country; nature is the best. The worst thing is I do see an occasional snake, which I don’t like.What is your favourite quotation?“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” Good advice for someone writing a novel. Who is your favourite fictional character?Tom Ripley.A book to make me laugh?How to be Good by Nick Hornby. A book that might move me to tears?Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.Getting Away with Murder is published by BantamIN THIS SECTION