Louise Doughty on Crossfire

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  We have a very special treat today, a visit from bestselling British author Louise Doughty! Louise is the author of nine novels, including the #1 bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which has been translated into thirty languages. Her most recent book is Platform Seven.  She has also written one work of non-fiction, five plays for radio and the BBC One three-part original drama Crossfire.

In the US, Crossfire premiered exclusively on Britbox this week!

A high-octane action thriller executive produced by and starring Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard); the first original series by bestselling novelist Louise Doughty (Apple Tree Yard, Black Water); and from the makers of The Salisbury Poisonings and The Responder, Crossfire is a high-stakes, thrilling drama about a vacation gone wrong when a group of revengeful gunmen take a hotel hostage and guests are forced to make monumental life or death decisions with enormous consequences. An intricately woven story of trauma and resilience, guilt and betrayal, Crossfire is an edge-of-your-seat, sophisticated thriller with an emotional, intimate and relatable core.

Here's a sneak peek.

This is an absolutely can't-look-away drama with fabulous performances, and thanks to Britbox I had a chance to chat with Louise about her journey from novelist to writer of a blockbuster television production.

DEBS: In writing my crime novels, I've said I like to explore what circumstances will drive an ordinary person to commit the extraordinary act of murder. But in your books--and certainly in Crossfire--you take this to the next level, putting all of your characters in extreme circumstances that test them to their limits. What draws you to these stories?

LOUISE: I completely agree with your approach: what is really interesting is taking an ordinary person and putting them under immense pressure, to see what happens, if they crack. I always put my characters through the mill but you're right, I really ramped it up with Crossfire.  In essence, I’m somewhat fatalistic. We never know what’s around the corner, what is coming at us, and we never know how we would behave in extreme circumstances, so really my novels are, in part, a way of exploring how I might behave if these things happened to me. 

DEBS: Are there particular writers or novels that influenced you?

LOUISE: It sounds odd when I don't write it myself, but as a child I was very inspired by science fiction and fantasy. I was a huge fan of Philip K Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula Le Guin. There is something about that genre shows you the possibilities of language, and how you can stretch your imagination in whatever direction takes you.  It was reading those books that taught me you really could do anything with an invented story.

In terms of current reading, I’ve just finished Kit de Waal's memoir, Without Warning & Only Sometimes, which is wonderful.  Malorie Blackman and Bernadine Evaristo have also recently published memoirs that are on my pile.  I’m looking forward to reading this year‘s Booker winner, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka as I'm a fan of Sri Lankan writing. I am, also, of course, a huge fan of Margaret Atwood and Anne Enright and Kate Atkinson and Chris Bohjalian.  Really, we could be here all day on this question.  One life isn't enough.

DEBS: Some of your previous novels have been adapted for television (Apple Tree Yard with Emily Watson!) but Crossfire is the first story you've written directly for TV. How was the experience different?

LOUISE: Well, the most notable difference is the number of people who have their fingers in the pie. I enjoyed the development process, talking through the arc of the story with the executives. It made a nice change from sitting on my own in a room all day long. But when something is actually filmed, there are so many restrictions on what the cast and crew can do, it's important to manage your expectations: the budget, the filming schedule, the director's vision, the needs of the broadcasters who are funding it all... these things all necessarily become more important than what you were trying to say in the first place, but the compensation for that is that you reach a mass audience that you can never reach with novels. The idea that literally millions of people are sitting on their sofas, consuming a story you wrote is quite mind-blowing, in a challenging and not entirely comfortable way.  It's a great compensation for all the work you have to put in.

DEBS: And of course, we all want to know what it was like to work with the brilliant Keeley Hawes? Her performance in Crossfire is absolutely brilliant.

LOUSIE: Keeley Hawes is extraordinary. Watching her work was one of the great pleasures of this production. It was a very challenging and stressful shoot for all of us, but particularly for her as she spent a lot of time running around corridors, carrying a heavy shotgun, in the heat, doing long hours - as well as having to act some very traumatic scenes. What was amazing was how she could be chatting with the crew one minute and then snap into character for an incredibly stressful scene the next. I’ve no idea how they train actors to be able to do that.  She was also an executive producer on the series and came on board at a very early stage, before it even been greenlit, so to have her input early on was a great help. All the actors were amazing - Keeley, and Josette Simon, Annieka Rose, Shalisha James-Davis, Alba Brunet - and that's just the lead women: there's so much performance talent around these days, as a writer it's a great gift.

DEBS: Yes, the men were terrific, too. What a performance from Lee Ingleby, who's long been a favorite of mine!

Louise hopes to have a chance to stop in to visit with readers today, but in the meantime, REDS and readers, have you ever  had a vacation go scarily wrong?

P.S. A real life drama-- our bank, right down the street from our house, was robbed yesterday! How terrifying for the bank staff and the customers, and certainly not what anyone was expecting on an ordinary Friday morning!