PHOTO: Claire McGowan photographed by Philippa Gedge, portraying an elegant balance of mystery and warmth.
Unveiling The Art Of Suspense And Timely Narratives
Claire McGowan discusses crafting complex thrillers, the interplay between past and present, unreliable perceptions, and how her Northern Irish heritage deepens her stories with rich cultural and emotional layers.
Claire McGowan has long been a masterful voice in the realms of psychological thrillers and crime fiction, crafting stories that tempt readers to probe deeper into the shadows of human behaviour. Born and raised in Northern Ireland yet now residing in London, her work often carries echoes of her roots—subtle nods to cultural resilience and the complexities of identity. With a pen that navigates dark alleys and fractured psyches, McGowan creates narratives that are both gripping and introspective, throwing fresh light on timeless questions about trust, perception, and memory.
From her early works to her more recent offerings, such as The First Girl, McGowan has demonstrated an uncanny ability to unravel the layers of human vulnerability. Her characters resonate deeply, not because they are infallible, but because they are captive to their own flaws—insomnia, unreliable memories, or tangled pasts. Through clever twists and dual timelines, she explores the fragility of perception and the haunting spectres of trauma, rendering tales that leave readers questioning their own reliability in deciphering truth from deceit.
What sets McGowan apart is not just her deftness with suspense but her acute sense of craft. Whether teaching budding writers or sculpting her own stories, she remains keenly aware of the mechanics of tension and intrigue, skilfully turning the screws until the last page trembles with revelation. Her layered narratives challenge us to confront how past decisions ripple into present actions, drawing striking parallels to the transformations within ourselves. If thrillers—and fiction at large—serve to hold up mirrors, McGowan’s work will leave us lingering longer before them, equally unsettled and enthralled.
In Are You Awake?, how did you develop Mary and Tim’s insomnia to reflect their psychological states and drive the suspense?
I’ve always had trouble sleeping myself, especially at the height of summer when this book is set. I tried to show how frazzled they had become, how they could no longer trust their own judgement or memories. I also brainstormed ways that not being able to sleep might lead to a great twist – if you couldn’t actually trust your own recollection.
What inspired the dual timelines and identities in I Know You, particularly Rachel’s transformation from Casey?
A dual timeline is a great way to build suspense, as the reader is hopefully eager to find out what happened in the past as well as what’s going to happen in the present, in this case why Casey went to prison and what befell the family she worked for. Initially I had thought to make it more of a twist that they are the same person, but instead it became more a question of how does someone change this much in twenty years, and what has happened to make that occur.
How has your background in teaching crime writing influenced your approach to crafting complex thrillers like Are You Awake?
It’s very useful for me to remind myself of crime writing techniques, even though I know the theory well. I also find teaching useful to keep up to date with what other writers are doing and how they stay original. Reading student work is also good for my own practice, as I can see what needs to change and what is working well.
Given your experience with screenwriting, have you considered adapting I Know You or Are You Awake? for television?
They would have to be optioned by a TV company first for this to happen, but I do have several books in development for TV, as well as some original scripts I’ve written. I feel some books don’t work that well for adaptation, for example if there is a twist about the identity of a character (as in my book the Other Wife) that would be revealed in a visual medium.
In Are You Awake?, the theme of unreliable perception is prominent. What drew you to explore this concept?
I’ve read a lot of psychological thrillers where the narrator is unreliable, for many reasons including outright lying. I think I explore this in almost every book, in different ways including deception, self-delusion, trauma-related memory loss, excessive drinking, and many other causes. In this book I explored being unreliable because of chronic insomnia, which wasn’t something I had seen done before.
How does your Northern Irish heritage influence the settings or characters in your novels?
After setting a whole series in Northern Ireland, I’ve moved to writing thrillers set in different parts of the UK (and LA in I Know You), but I would be interested to write a non-procedural in NI too. It makes a big difference to how characters speak, think, and behave, and the weight of the past and culture is always there. In Northern Ireland people can usually find humour in any situation, no matter how bad.
What challenges did you face when intertwining past and present narratives in I Know You?
When you write intertwining timelines you have to very carefully manage the flow of information in each one, and ideally have it clash and complement what we’re finding out in the other one, in a way that surprises and intrigues the reader. I’m always thinking about how to drip-feed plot points and create the most suspense.
What key advice would you offer aspiring authors aiming to write compelling psychological thrillers?
You really have to have a good hook, one that will grab the reader with an intriguing and mysterious situation right from the start, and you also have to make sure you keep them gripped the whole way through. As psychological thrillers often have a slow burn, you really need to use structure, devices, and suspense tricks to do this. I’m always thinking about how to structure my books, whether it’s by multiple viewpoints or timelines or both.
