Today’s interviewee is the inimitable Janice Hallett, whose bestselling whodunits play with structure and format to become an immersive experience. Her latest, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, is a headfirst dive into cults, old secrets, and good old fashioned professional rivalry. In the interview below, Janice and I chat about the new book, plus her writing process and what to expect next from her.
And, as I’ve said many times, I’m a huge fan of Janice’s novels and highly recommend them, including this latest release. If you haven’t tried her books yet, perhaps this will inspire you to give them a go—truly, you can’t go wrong with any of them, but if you need my input, I have a TikTok for that.
Connect with Janice on Instagram and Twitter/X. Grab a copy of The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels from your retailer of choice here.
Hi Janice, thanks so much for joining! The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels follows two rival journalists as they work to unravel the decades-old mystery of the infamous Alperton Angels cult. What drew you to true crime, and cults specifically, as the focal points of this story?
I’m fascinated by the extremes of human behaviour, so I’ve loved the true crime genre for as long as I can remember—since reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote thirty years ago. There’s something about real crimes and mysteries that fiction just can’t compete with. Having said that, the fact that this genre makes entertainment from other people’s worst experiences plays on my mind. It was from that inner conflict The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels was born.
Cults are a very particular type of criminal situation, because the victims appear willing and even fight to stay in that place of exploitation. As a society we are only just beginning to understand the nature and power of coercive control. Cults operate on the basis of predator and prey, the same as any crime. A cult leader will target people who are at their most vulnerable – for example, people who are recently bereaved, at difficult times in their lives, or simply very young and insecure. They find out what someone is looking for and then fill that gap in their life. This is a ploy to manipulate that victim into a situation of dependence and powerlessness. It doesn’t have to be a big organization with many members either. You can have a cult of two people: leader and follower. It’s the same core dynamics of coercive control.
Cult theory fascinates me because it’s not true to say that a particular type of person is susceptible to joining a cult. It’s truer to say we are all vulnerable to coercive control at various points in our lives. The more aware you are of how, why and when you might be vulnerable, the better placed you are to protect yourself from controlling individuals and organizations.
Like The Appeal, this is an epistolary novel: the mystery unfolds through letters, emails, text messages, interview transcriptions, and other correspondence. How do you plot these kinds of novels? Do you write certain types of correspondence at a time, or write in chronological order? What is most challenging (and, perhaps, most rewarding) about this format?
I don’t do a lot of plotting in advance. I prefer to let my imagination run riot and allow the characters to steer the narrative, especially as I create that first draft. I’ll write chronologically in terms of the book, but not in terms of time.
For instance, in The Appeal we read a certain amount of correspondence and form an opinion on what might or might not have happened, then we’re given another batch of letters from the same time period—and they shed new light on what was also happening at the time. Those emails were written in the order they appear in the book. This format is a great way to see a story from multiple perspectives—because an epistolary novel is very much a sequence of first-person narratives. The limitations are generally around the setting. Characters have to cheekily reveal where they are and when they’re writing, which can be a challenge!
What strikes me as especially unique about your writing is your ability to craft vivid characters through their correspondence. How do you find each character’s “voice,” and/or what do you do to ensure they and their messages feel realistic?
I imagine my process is similar to that of an actor, who will work to get under the skin of a character, so they can project them with conviction and authenticity. I’ll imagine myself as a character in order to write from their point of view. I hope that means the reader feels the same way, and that with each letter, text or email they see the world from that character’s perspective.
It’s an aim of both reading and writing crime novels that we gain some understanding of why people commit crimes—if we can understand that, then we can better protect ourselves from danger in the future. It’s that fear, and that desire to shield ourselves from danger, that underpins the entire crime genre—both crime fiction and true crime. Getting beneath the skin of all the characters involved is key.
How has your background in editing, journalism, and government communication informed and influenced your fiction writing? Are there any interesting overlaps between your careers?
My former lives working as different sorts of writer have given me a healthy respect for deadlines and the ability to write when I don’t feel in the mood for writing. Now I have a lot more deadlines, that is a very useful skill indeed! I think confidence is a large part of novel writing and my previous careers helped there too. It takes confidence to start writing a book, to stick at it during the tricky first draft stage, and then rewrite it to other people’s feedback.
The format of my novels—as correspondence between characters—has a direct link to my former life as a script writer for stage and screen. My novels can feel as if you’re eavesdropping on people who don’t realise their conversations can be heard. Scriptwriting, where you deliver character through dialogue has been very informative there.
Lastly, what’s on the horizon for you? Do you have any upcoming releases or other projects you’d like to share?
I’m editing my next novel The Examiner, to be published in September this year. It’s another unconventional narrative where we are reading the coursework and essays for a small-group Masters Degree: the examiner thinks one of the students died on the course and the others covered it up, but is he correct?Meanwhile I’m writing my sixth novel—scheduled for publication in 2025—while also working on pilot scripts for The Twyford Code and The Alperton Angels. Scriptwriting is a fantastic foil to novel writing because it’s so collaborative. With a novel, it’s just you and the text for months on end. While scriptwriting, you’re surrounded by other people: producers, the director, executives, and script editors who are available to bounce ideas off. The structure of a script means it’s written much faster too, and the process is less intense. My ideal day is to work on a novel in the morning and a script in the afternoon.
Thanks so much to Janice for the interview. Sleuths, I hope you enjoyed it! If you aren’t already subscribed, please be sure to sign up for the Cluesletter and get author features like this alongside other mystery goodies, delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday.