go about choosing what you're going to focus on and doing the research that's needed for it?

Yeah, that was, um, that was difficult territory that I kind of stumbled clumsily into because, um, you know, long story short, my very eccentric mother revealed to me, uh, in 2022 that she never told the police about an encounter that she had when she was 17.

And she believes that that encounter that she had.

was with the perpetrator in a real cold case murder in Coogee and Randwick.

In 1973 and 1974, there were these two murders.

So first of all, I was like, excuse me, have you not noticed that for the last eight years or whatever it is, I've been trying to be the foremost crime writer in the country, could you possibly have mentioned this at any point? Before now, what is wrong with you? And she said, I just, I forgot all about it.

Sorry.

gentlemen and

Romance novels or fantasy novels or like what is it that attracted it, like attracted you to it in the first place?

I gravitated towards crime because I was familiar with it and my tastes are extreme and I'm just a nosy, nosy person.

It has always been a lot of crime around me, even as a kid.

So my dad worked for a bunch of Sydney prisons, and so he was coming home and telling my mum his work stories.

And this was a household in which there was no discretion.

There was no subtlety because it was a real zoo.

So my mum had four kids and then she adopted two and then she fostered 155 kids as I was growing up.

Like when did you, when did you start writing?

Oh, dear.

Yeah.

And I've learned a lot about Lynette and Maria as people, and I wanted to do that because part of the book was writing about that pain that I have not experienced at all.

Missing someone and loving someone and being outraged by their horrific loss for half a century.

And I also, there's a lot of true crime coverage of women in particular which really drills down on two ideas about them.

First, that they were beautiful, and second, that they were nice, and that's all you ever hear.

And I s- had to say to Paul and Steven, "I know they were beautiful-"

Yeah

Mm.

You know, stuff like that.

So there was crime around, and I always just knew that it was...

And, and, and my mom was obsessed with it.

At one time, she was getting into my dad's career, supporting his career, or being invested in his career, and she was writing to prison inmates, and she was writing to 20 at the one time.

She built all the way up to 20, and then she said, "I can't keep up with this.

I don't know who anyone is." You know? And, um, that was scary, because, um, she was writing to all different types, and she was writing to a pedophile.

Mm.

Yeah

... "Well, but, but, but," you know? And, and the, the arrogance and naivety, uh, what I was talking about earlier, I was thinking, "I have been called upon to do something about this, and this is not enough, you know, what you're saying here." And then, and so I thought, "Okay, that's it.

Step aside, everyone.

I'm gonna solve this myself."I'm gonna get a podcast.

I'm gonna investigate it.

I'm gonna be the new Hedley Thomas.

Watch this.

Mm

Yeah

... like mid-back, I guess.

And they were like, "No, you'll have to wear a jacket over that.

That's too provocative," and all this.

I was like, "Okay." So I went back to my car.

I got my jacket.

Ah.

Yeah.