Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What Would You Do: The Woman Who Lied (2023) by Claire Douglas
0 Playsin 14 hours
Someone is acting out details from a successful mystery author's plots in real life. Who? Why? Brook and Sarah discuss how they would handle a similar situation to Emilia Ward in Claire Douglas' 2023 release The Woman Who Lied.
Spoiler warning: In this episode, Brook and Sarah discuss the book and its plot points in detail.
Discussed and mentioned
The Woman Who Lied (2023) Claire Douglas
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Sign up for our newsletter: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-chronicle/
Order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah
For a full episode transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/what-would-you-do-the-woman-who-lied/
Recommended
![[Re-release] Anna Katharine Green image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/7f7ed21f-6dd3-47b5-860c-a08344c5d1e7.jpg)
![[Re-release] G.K. Chesterton (part 2) image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/babb09c1-7933-49cb-8213-3eb4b476116b.jpg)
![[Re-release] G.K. Chesterton (part 1) image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/3f2e982d-f98d-4e9a-9424-bdf97b08d7db.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction and Love for Mysteries
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke. Hi, Sarah. Today, we're putting ourselves in the main character's shoes and asking the question, what would you do?
00:00:29
Speaker
Yes, I love these episodes because it's a neat way to read through a book and think about What are the characters motivations?
00:00:40
Speaker
ah Before we begin, Brooke, I should mention that as with all of our What Would You Do episodes, we're getting into a lot of detail about the book. And so if you haven't read the book, there will be spoilers for you. So we encourage you to go ahead and read the book and then come back and listen to the episode.
Summary of 'The Woman Who Lied'
00:00:59
Speaker
That's right. And this week we're discussing The Woman Who Lied by Claire Douglas. So in this book, Amelia Ward is a best-selling crime writer preparing to publish the final book in her popular detective series. But as her publication day approaches, strange incidents begin occurring around her.
00:01:22
Speaker
Incidents that mirror crimes, threats, and plot points from her own novels. At first, the similarities it seem impossible to explain and are chalked up to coincidence.
00:01:34
Speaker
Soon, though, the events become more personal, scarier, and increasingly difficult to dismiss. As Amelia tries to uncover who's behind all this, she finds herself questioning a smaller and smaller suspect pool.
Reality vs Fiction in Writing
00:01:51
Speaker
So Sarah, this story premise just fascinates me primarily because both of us are authors and, you know, usually this would happen in reverse. Writers observe something that happens out in the world and we think, oh, how could I use that? How could I, you know, kind of twist it and incorporate it into a story? But in this book, the author's imagined situation seemingly begin to come true. So I think it's the perfect what would you do book for us.
00:02:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, I love the premise, right? The idea that what this author has written is coming true and not just like in the world, but to her.
00:02:37
Speaker
We should probably mention that the book, ah most of it is told from Amelia's perspective, but there are these scenes that are interspersed that are a detective. And maybe we can talk a little bit about Like, what did you think those scenes were at first?
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question because it's a little mysterious as you're reading. i would get to those sections before i I caught on and be a little thrown off. ah Like, what am I reading here?
00:03:14
Speaker
And it wasn't until fairly far into the book that I realized what was happening. I'm the same. So initially, it's very strongly hinted and suggested that these are scenes from Amelia's last book, right? That the detective narrator is her character investigating the plot. It turns out that this is actually a detective investigating
00:03:48
Speaker
crimes that are very similar to what take place
Red Herrings and Mirroring Events
00:03:51
Speaker
in the book. So and there's not only the plot points, ah for example, the first one where Amelia is on a bus and the bus gets diverted because there's a bomb scare at a local attraction that's nearby. And that's very similar to what happens in one of her books.
00:04:10
Speaker
She's experiencing very similar plot points in real life to ones that she had written. And that's why i think there's this confusion, intentional, I'm sure, between whether this is her character's investigation or actual police investigation.
00:04:28
Speaker
Right, right. It's a really clever way to create a large red herring, essentially, because it sends us as readers kind of down ah the wrong thought path.
00:04:42
Speaker
But that first, you mentioned the explosion, and I think that is the first ah great what would you do question because ah the bomb scare is very similar to what she wrote in her book. And she goes home and just kind of scratching her head and talking to her family. um Do you think that you'd be very concerned at this point?
00:05:05
Speaker
I don't think so, right? This is very easy to chalk up to a um coincidence, right? ah She lives in London. It's a very big city. It is not unheard of for London to have bomb scares, which is probably why she wrote that into her book.
00:05:25
Speaker
The fact that it was that she was on a bus when it happened, like that's a little weird, but... um Yeah, i don't I don't think that it would be raising any red flags for me at this point.
00:05:37
Speaker
What about you? Yeah, I agree. I think in some ways it might reinforce that like, wow, I created a really great plot point, a great situation for a character because look at that. I actually lived through it and all of us on that bus lived through it. And it's, um I don't think that I'd be too concerned at this point.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. Kind of patting yourself on the back for writing such a realistic scene.
Amelia's Growing Concerns
00:06:07
Speaker
So relatable. But shortly after that, there's a package that's delivered to her house.
00:06:15
Speaker
So there's no name attached to the package. It's figurine of the seagull. And this is meaningful because ah her detective character does not like seagulls.
00:06:28
Speaker
yeah And so would this would this raise a red flag for you, Brooke? Absolutely. I think that by receiving this very specific item that is only special in the books, it would...
00:06:46
Speaker
then make me question and look back at the bombing right I'd be like okay maybe I was too quick to dismiss that because it's at your house oh and the seagull's head was broken off as well so there's this creepy factor yeah which I think she kind of thinks oh maybe it got broken in the um in the delivery. so she's a a little bit, i don't think she takes it as as seriously, right? Like she she says, you know, this is weird. um Maybe it's,
00:07:22
Speaker
a fan has figured out where I live makes her a bit uncomfortable but she's not um you know not super concerned although she does mention this to her friend who is a police detective her friend Louise um and Louise uh encourages her to you know maybe you should just get a little bit more home security right she's got this um entryway to the to the house that is often left unlocked. And she's like, you know, I just think you you might want to lock that up.
00:07:53
Speaker
And this is shortly after um she finds a ah troll doll hanging from her tree. So this is kind of after the third Strange coincidence.
00:08:06
Speaker
Again, this is another plot point from one of her books. And at her regular meeting with this friend of hers who has a child in the same class as as Amelia's son, she says, you know, these strange things have been happening. And this is this is when and Detective Louise says, you know, just get yourself some security. It sounds like someone's, you know, just being a bit weird.
00:08:34
Speaker
she also has a good resource in her father-in-law who has been in law enforcement. Now he is a security guard. And, um, so she's able to run some things by him as well. And he agrees with Louise, like we need to ramp up your security, um and get things dialed in because it makes a lot of sense that this is like a fan kind of taunting her And so I think that,
00:09:03
Speaker
at my At this point, I would feel really good taking that advice and then feeling pretty safe after that. I think that this is one of the pitfalls of becoming really famous as any sort of creator, right? It's okay. these I've gotten to that stage of my career where I need to take security a little more seriously.
00:09:26
Speaker
Mm hmm. Well, and and I think she's looking ahead a little bit because in this final book that she has just submitted to her publisher, um you said it's the final book in her series, but it's definitely the final book because she is killing off her detective. And this is a very well loved series. As you said, she's very popular.
00:09:49
Speaker
People are likely to ah respond quite passionately. And so, yeah, it makes a lot of sense to just ah amp up the security ah a little bit so that um if anybody else figures out where she lives, they will be safe and secure. But then her husband has to go out of town.
00:10:10
Speaker
And because she's been feeling a little exposed here, she decides to have another friend, Audily. And this is a friend that she has known since boarding school. come spend the night with her. And that really helps. And Audily is a she's a friend that is just lighthearted. She's going to make you, you know, have a good time and laugh about these situations. ah But in the middle of the night, when Audily is there,
00:10:38
Speaker
some really disturbing things happen and that once again tie back to the books. um The skylights open, which apparently in the books is the way that ah the villain enters Holmes. So her skylights are open and her Alexa begins playing a psycho killer in the middle of the night.
00:10:59
Speaker
So this is particularly unsettling because she's at home with her two children. She's got a teenage daughter and a son who's in elementary school. And yes, Adelie is there, but it's two women alone in the house with these with these two kids.
00:11:16
Speaker
h Yeah. Would you wonder if someone one is kind of watching you? Because her husband, whose name is Elliot, is gone. And I think I would be thinking, oh my gosh, like this is too perfectly timed. Is someone watching me? Yeah, I i think I would be quite concerned about that.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, she she's she's very unsettled at this point. um So Brooke, would you report this to the police, do you think?
Suspicions and Close Circle
00:11:51
Speaker
I think I would. And um especially in my situation. But when I think about Amelia, she has a very good friend, Louise, who is in police. She's not in the same, um I don't think she's in the same jurisdiction or in the same like part of the police force that would cover something like this, but she's got this resource. And then she's got Trevor, her father-in-law who has been in, security and policing. And so I think that she goes to them and gets advice and maybe some assurances. And that, in a sense, kind of prevents her from going farther. And I think that that was a mistake on her part. I do think that there should be more communication with the police about these things that are happening.
00:12:44
Speaker
Shortly after that, she gets contacted by a reporter who says, I understand there are some strange things happening to you. Yes. Right. And she doesn't know who has tipped this reporter off because she hasn't filed a police claim. Right.
00:13:02
Speaker
ah But she does speak to the to this reporter and it a story is published about this. Would you speak to a reporter, do you think? Like, would you want attention brought to this?
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting when she talks to those people close to her. i mean, her husband almost encourages it. Like, hey, well, this is probably going to help the, you know, like this eerie situation that ah crime writers in might help sell books, you know, go for it. And I would be very...
00:13:35
Speaker
especially with ah the way that this person kind of mysteriously contacts you, I would have been very timid to go and meet with this person and share the information. Because one thing that ah the author does really good in this book is each time Amelia is with someone, I start to question them.
00:13:58
Speaker
And I think I would worry that this journalist is the bad guy. Like, how does she know I'm having these episodes? What is going on She's a stranger to me.
00:14:10
Speaker
i don't I don't know that I would do it. And I definitely wouldn't do it if I hadn't at least made the police report. Well, and it's around this time that she really pieces together that the last strange thing that has happened to her comes from this unpublished book that she has only shared with a few people, right? So her editor at the at the publisher has it, maybe her agent has it, and then
00:14:42
Speaker
a handful of the people who are closest to her, uh, because they are her early readers. So her parents, um, I think her husband and possibly Trevor, I can't remember, um who is her father-in-law and, uh, utterly, I believe also has a copy. And, um, Louise is familiar with the story because, uh, she was a like expert advisor,
00:15:13
Speaker
that Amelia has been using to to make her stories feel more authentic. So she realizes that it must, whoever is doing this to her, must be someone who is in this tight circle of people who are close to her.
00:15:36
Speaker
I know this is where things get real because this isn't a crazed fan. This isn't someone out yeah from the outside trying to get in. It's somebody that's already in her life. And she understandably gets very frantic at this point and is questioning everyone.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, so she starts to like make this list of people who who it could be. um Because ah the most recent strange event is that her daughter and her daughter's friend were sent tickets to a concert that they had been told they weren't allowed to attend. But um someone sent a pair of tickets to them anonymously through the friend's boyfriend. And so then the girls, it seems like they've gone missing.
00:16:36
Speaker
Amelia gets this phone call from someone who she believes is at a hospital saying that her daughter is injured. And so there's this almost frantic search for her daughter. She gets Louise to come and help. And ah the daughter, the the girls are ultimately found safe and sound. um But it's at this point that she's like, who would do this to me?
00:17:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That's right. I don't know, Sarah, do you think with with all the, we've talked about the seagull and the troll doll and the the skylights were open in her house.
00:17:14
Speaker
Would you even allow your teenage daughter to go spend the night with a friend? Because the the teenagers did that very classic, I'm going to stay at Sally's house and Sally says, I'm going to stay at Jane's house. and they you know But would you have even...
00:17:28
Speaker
been allowing your kids to go about their go to school and go to their friend's house? and Yeah. it I mean, it's hard. And you probably can ah speak to this a little bit more because you um were more recently in this stage of life. But I think as teens, you know they're really starting to assert their independence. And it it's hard to balance that parent relationship with without potentially harming that relationship that you have with your child. Um, and I think the, the daughter was already like, you're, you're acting really strange, mom. Like, you know, give me a break kind of, um, so yeah, I don't know. um
00:18:16
Speaker
I think after after that, though, certainly Amelia is like, no, you are not going to any sleepovers. That's right. A couple of things happening in quick succession. So she um sees a troll doll at her ex-husband's house.
00:18:31
Speaker
um And her ex-husband's wife is her former close friend. Yeah. who also is on this list of people who have had the opportunity to read her book because she's, you know, um still friendly with her ex-husband because they have this daughter that they share. And, you know, she's realized that it's much better to be friendlier than than to have ah an acrimonious relationship with him.
00:19:01
Speaker
ah But she is in the house and sees this troll doll and immediately her former friend, her ex-husband's wife becomes her prime suspect, right? That she's for some reason been manufacturing these these um scary events in Amelia's life.
00:19:23
Speaker
But then shortly after that, she gets a call from Louise, a voicemail message saying, I'm really, really sorry. Please come to my house and I'll explain everything. And so Amelia is very concerned because she doesn't know what Louise is talking about. She shows up at Louise's house and Louise is dead.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yes. And not only is she dead, but she has a a marking on her ankle she again, comes from Amelia's book.
00:19:58
Speaker
And this is where we learn that the detective scenes that we've been reading are real life, because this is the same marking that a serial killer has been leaving on the ankles of his victims.
00:20:13
Speaker
That's right. So the two worlds converge here, at least... superficially. i don't think we completely understand. Amelia certainly doesn't understand what's going on, but the marking is the marking in the, in the fictional world that she's created on the victims.
00:20:33
Speaker
But this is so happening in actual life as well. And as you said, we we are, had been reading about the current investigations happening there. So that was a really strong point in the story.
00:20:50
Speaker
Well, so so the detective who's investigating this serial killer cannot understand how Amelia wrote this into her book because that particular detail is something that had not been made public. So how could she possibly have known about this? And Amelia says, look, it came out of my story. What she doesn't admit is that the seed for this story actually came from Louise. And so she's feeling ah pretty torn up about what to say because she has passed this idea and this book off as her own when really the germ of it was this short story that Louise had written and said, I'm not going to do anything with it. You see what you can do.
00:21:42
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. So, Sarah, the manuscript is off at the publishers. At what point would you admit to the fact that it wasn't just an idea that someone one gave you? You literally took some of their writing and passed it off as your own, essentially. Yeah. And so in this book, there are scenes that ah feature this character, Daisy. And I think it's those particular sections that Amelia has passed off as her own, but they they actually came from Louise. um
00:22:18
Speaker
And what Amelia doesn't realize is that Louise was writing from experience. That's right. I would like to think that I wouldn't even find myself in that situation, Brooke, that I had taken someone else's work and not acknowledged that that I'd used it in my own.
00:22:39
Speaker
But Amelia kind of justifies that she did this because she was really at this burnout point. She knew she didn't want to continue this series, but she had you know contractual obligations to do so.
00:22:52
Speaker
I mean, I think at this point, I think you have to come clean. Your good friend is dead, right? These strange things have been happening. Nothing to say that um the harm or sorry, the risk to Amelia and her family has gone away. i think i think I would be saying, guys, um there's something going on here.
00:23:17
Speaker
For sure. And I get frustrated with Amelia at this point because she doesn't even want to tell her husband that she's done this. And I just want to shake her. And yeah, I would definitely be explaining what happened and just having to face the facts of of this unethical thing that I've done.
00:23:40
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. And at this point, um there are some some clear suspects that emerge. So one is her husband, because someone riding his bike that they had kept just inside the front door of their home, that it had been stolen a few nights earlier, but um A witness saw someone riding this bike away from Louise's house. So that kind of suggests that it could be her husband. And then she's also quite suspicious of Trevor, her father-in-law, because...
00:24:20
Speaker
as she pieces together, okay, this is a real story um and real events. And ah there's this serial killer. She thinks, oh my goodness, is this killer my, my father-in-law.
00:24:36
Speaker
He fits the description quite well when she goes back and she looks at this as having been a real person, his life experience and also his physical features. He's,
00:24:49
Speaker
kind of fits the description. So she becomes very suspicious of both her husband and him.
00:24:57
Speaker
In the detective scenes, we learn that the detective doesn't think that Louise was the victim of her serial killer that she is she has been pursuing because there are some inconsistencies in terms of how she was killed versus how the um serial killer's other victims were killed. And we learn that this story about Daisy that Amelia had incorporated into her book was based on Louise's life, that her mother had been killed by this serial killer and Daisy had found her her mother's body. um And the detective says, you know, i don't actually think that her mother was a victim.
00:25:40
Speaker
So there's someone who is um a copycat killer, if you will. Mm-hmm. That's right. Which just like puts on another layer of confusion for Amelia. I just don't think I would know what to think at this point because she's got so many suspicions. I would feel like I had no one to trust.
00:26:02
Speaker
um She's got this small circle who had access to the last book. And I just think I would feel so alone at this point.
00:26:13
Speaker
In her book, this Daisy character ah realizes that the person who killed her mother is the father of her boyfriend, Ash. And so this is where Amelia is like,
00:26:30
Speaker
oh my gosh, my husband is Ash, right? Because there's some um similarities in terms of where he went to university, um that he had to take a leave of absence from school because he had a had a breakdown. And this is the same for the character of Ash. And she is certain that Trevor is this killer. Yeah.
Real-Life Parallels and Betrayal
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And she confronts both of them about it. And I have to say, I felt like those characters took this pretty well. um They tried to reassure her and, you know, didn't get too bent out of shape of being accused of being murderers. But ah I think that they could see in Amelia that she was just pretty much going off the rails at this point. And yeah,
00:27:23
Speaker
I thought that they handled that quite well. But Elliot does get taken to the police station for questioning. That's right. And so she goes to Otterly to find comfort, right? Her world is essentially collapsed around her.
00:27:39
Speaker
And while she's at Otterly's house, Otterly has this cat and she realizes that it's Louise's cat. So what would you do, Brooke?
00:27:51
Speaker
That was one of the scariest scenes actually, because she's been drinking the beverage that Audily offers her and she sees that this is Louise's cat. And i think all these connections, although confusing as can be, all these connections would be firing for me and I would realize that I was in real danger.
00:28:19
Speaker
And she is in danger. Auderly has put a sedative into her drink. But before Amelia can come to harm, Auderly leaves her in this apartment.
00:28:31
Speaker
And... The police have figured out who the serial killer is but also who the killer of Louise is. And um the book ends with a little denouement where Emilia has told everybody the truth about everything. She's had to rewrite significant portions of her book, comes out a little later than anticipated.
00:28:58
Speaker
She has managed to repair some of those relationships with her ah close friends and and with with her family. That's right. So, Sarah, another what would you do here?
00:29:12
Speaker
do you think if this happened to you, you would keep writing crime fiction? Yeah. Ooh, that's such a good question, Brooke. I don't know. It might might just be a little too close to home now.
00:29:25
Speaker
i know. I was imagining that Amelia might need to switch genres. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I made a note that um the women who are closest to her, there's three of them at different points in her life, and they all betray her, right? So it turns out that the person who was behind all of these strange things was Louise, who wanted to call attention to this book and this story in particular, because she wanted to find out who this killer was. who had killed her mother.
00:30:02
Speaker
So Louise betrays her, Auderly betrays her, Auderly, who's been her friend since ah grade school, betrays her because, you know, she tries to kill her. She kills her friend, Louise.
00:30:16
Speaker
ah And then her friend, Kristen, who was at school with with Amelia and Auderly, Kristen betrayed Amelia and married Amelia's husband after after they divorced. um So, you know, she can't rely on any of the women in her life, which I thought was a bit of a sad point.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about the fact that really none of her female friends are left at the end. That's a tough one for me. I would have, I would like to her to have at least someone.
00:30:51
Speaker
So if, if she is going to continue to write, maybe she will write something about women friendships and see them actually being positive things in someone's life.
00:31:08
Speaker
And then maybe that could come true in her world. Okay, well, thank you, Brooke.
Conclusion and Reflections
00:31:12
Speaker
I think this has been really fun to break down this book. Like I said, I i loved the premise of this. um And i think it's kind of fun to think about both what would I do if I were the main character, but also what would I do if my writing was inspiring someone to commit crimes?
00:31:34
Speaker
Yes, Sarah, this one was especially fun to break down together. But before we go, I do have a question of the week, listeners. Amelia discovers events from her books may be happening in real life. What mystery novel would you hate to find yourself living through?
00:31:51
Speaker
Let us know your answer on social media or by email. We'd love to hear what you think. But until next time, thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke.
00:32:03
Speaker
And I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app.
00:32:20
Speaker
Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, and get mystery news, podcast updates, and bonus episodes. We're on social media at Clued in Mystery.