Louise, a former teacher at the Faber Academy, and Bev will discuss how to write suspense in this incredibly versatile genre which dominates the bestseller lists and creeps onto our television screens.īooks will be on sale and the event will be followed by a book signing. He is observed by the narrator the ghost of a. She has been nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Costa Novel Award.īev Thomas was a clinical psychologist in the NHS and now works as an organisational consultant in mental health services. Platform Seven, Louise Doughty’s ninth novel, begins with the suicide of a man who throws himself under a train at 4am at Peterborough Station. Her Top Ten bestseller Apple Tree Yard sold over half a million copies in the UK alone and was adapted for BBC as a four-part series starring Emily Watson. Platform Seven is Louise Doughty's ninth novel.

The acclaimed author of Apple Tree Yard and a highly-anticipated debut novelist discuss the art of writing intelligent, psychological thrillers. Free UK p&p on all online orders over £15.Fiction: How to Write the Perfect Crime Chaired by Jake Kerridge Monday 7th October 2019, 7-8pm Robert Graves Gallery £12.50 Platform Seven by Louise Doughty is published by Faber (£14.99). It’s an oddly woolly element of a book that is, in other respects, never less than chillingly precise.

She can sort of read minds, but not quite has no memory of her life story and then suddenly, inexplicably it comes back although she describes herself as pure consciousness, she also seems to have a floating form that people can pass through. The supernatural elements of the story are less effective the nature of Lisa’s ghostly presence is never specific enough to work as anything more than a narrative device. I also love her evocation of place and character each member of staff at the station has a backstory, creating a complex web of human relationships. All the while, his public displays of affection convinced her friends and family that “he’s obviously crazy about you, Lisa”.ĭoughty paints a claustrophobic and all-too-believable portrait of a controlling relationship. His violence was psychological: he flirted with other women and limited Lisa’s contact with her friends he constantly questioned her sanity, and made subtle threats that he subsequently explained away. Her boyfriend, Matty, was a charming doctor in public and a cold-blooded manipulator behind closed doors.

A joy from the first page to the last., Clare Mackintosh Louise Doughty leads. Our ghostly narrator died on the same platform in mysterious circumstances only a few months before, and with Doughty’s characteristic drip-feed of information, we slowly find out how and why. A beautifully constructed novel about love of all kinds.

Now she takes on that most contemporary of topics, coercive control. Doughty paints a claustrophobic and all-too-believable portrait of a controlling relationship

Platform seven by louise doughty