‘I took that idea and I took them out of their usual context’
For Jane Casey, her new thriller The Close was a chance to push her characters out of their comfort zone — and explore the idea of how the lines between home and work life have blurred over the last few years. The tenth instalment in the Maeve Kerrigan series is set in the seemingly p icture-perfect Jellicoe Close — but it turns out there’s more to the neighbourhood than meets the eye, with dark secrets behind the neat front doors and someone with murder on their mind.
And it’s up to DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent to go undercover, posing as a new couple to the neighbourhood, to uncover the truth.
But along the way, the lines between professional and personal begin to blur more than they ever have before.
Jane told Chic how she wanted to do“something that was different”to mark the tenth Maeve book as she opened up about the inspiration behind the thriller.
She explained,“i didn’t want to write a pandemic novel. I think that people have done some brilliant ones — Catherine Ryan Howard did the pandemic novel. I just didn’t see myself writing about it.
“But then I was thinking about what it would be like if the characters had to work from home — how would that possibly work? I was like, ‘I think it’d be undercover, and they’d be in this home environment’.
“I think the pandemic sort of blurred the boundaries between work and home life, where you might come to work and be a very formal person and very relaxed at home. Suddenly, people could see in your home environment.
“I did loads of Zoom stuff during the pandemic where people would be looking at the background saying things like,‘oh, you’ve got that item’ or ‘I’ve got that picture’ or whatever — and it felt quite exposing. You’re sharing something that you might not necessarily want to or expect to. I took that idea and I took them out of their usual context.
“The Close is the tenth book in the series, so I wanted to do something that was different; something that would push them out of their comfort zone.”
The nail-biting thriller pushes Maeve and Josh into their“own kind of little bubble” — and the dynamic between the pair was something that Jane said was“a lot of fun”to write.
She continued, “There’s nobody watching and they are definitely in their own kind of little bubble, so there are no consequences — or they think there are no consequences for anything that happens.
“And obviously, because I made them be undercover as a couple
— as far as everyone
[in the neighbourhood] is concerned, they’re a couple — there’s loads of opportunities for them have all those lovely moments that do end up bringing you closer to someone and can make you see someone in a different light. It was a lot of fun.”
Jane told how the willthey-won’t-they dynamic between Josh and Maeve was one that developed more through the characters and their growth — as well as their influence on each other — over the years.
She continued,“i’m always really conscious of how if you have a bad experience in the real world, you take that with you — it changed you somehow. And I think that’s how it should happen in fiction, as well.
“The characters should bring something from the previous book into the next book, because it’s not realistic for them to be starting new every time; to be a blank page.
“I think that Josh and Maeve have each had an influence on one another and the way that they relate to each other has changed as they got closer.
“It feels very natural to me that they are so
“I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING THAT WAS DIFFERENT.”
closely involved with each other’s lives at this stage, after all the things that they’ve been through.”
Jane recalled how Josh’s character wasn’t originally intended to be someone that stuck around past the second book — but once she moved onto the next one, it quickly became clear he would be sticking around much longer.
She said,“i remember writing it thinking,‘he’s such a good character — it’s a shame he’s only going to be in this book’, because I wasn’t planning to take him further in the series.
“He was a good one book character, because he’s such a strong character. I thought, ‘one book, and that’s it — I’ll be finished with him’. But when I started writing the third book in the series, he was there. And I was just like, ‘Oh, I guess he’s part of the team now’.”
And with The Close being the tenth book in the series, Jane opened up about some of her future plans for Maeve, Josh and the rest of the team.
She said,“i definitely know a few things that are going to happen in the future, but how those things play out can vary a little bit when those things happen. Some of the things that are going to happen in the next couple of books, I’m very clear on. But other things, it’s like, ‘oh, that would be nice to have at some point, but I’m not ready to do that yet’ or ‘I think it’s going to take a little while to get to the point where that needs to happen’.
“It’s the thing where you don’t want to hang on too long, either. The will-theywon’t-they thing is great, but you actually have to make a decision at some point.”
Late last year, it was announced that Jane’s 2020 standalone novel, The Killing Kind, would be adapted for the screen by Paramount+.
Filming is underway on the six-part series with The Witcher’s Emma Appleton and Merlin’s Colin Morgan taking on the lead roles.
Jane told how it was“incredible surreal” to see the book’s journey from the page to the screen — and praised the creative team behind the programme.
She said,“it’s incredibly surreal, just thinking about sitting in a flat during lockdown and writing this book — and then to see actors embodying those characters and bringing their own talent to it.
“When you’re turning a novel into a six-part series, you have to take out some things, you have to put in some things and you have to change bits and pieces.
“And the writers have made something so fabulous — and it’s not my book anymore, so I can say that. My book still exists, but what they’ve done is so creative.
“And that’s the interesting part to me, to see someone who is really at the top of their game taking something and making it their own.” ■
The Close by Jane Casey, published by Harpercollins, is available now.