It is a truth universally acknowledged that Lily Samson doesn’t like…

 What Book…

Thriller writer Lily Samson

…are you reading now?

I am enjoying a biography of Alfred Hitchcock – The Dark Side Of Genius, by Donald Spoto. It has taught me a lot about my favourite director and how I can learn from him to be a better writer.

I was interested to discover that, aged 16, Hitchcock fell in love with reading Edgar Allan Poe, feeling that his films were comparable to Poe’s novels as ‘a completely unbelievable story told to the readers with such spellbinding logic that you get the impression that the same thing could happen to you tomorrow’.

..would you take to a desert island?

My favourite thriller writer is Patricia Highsmith and my favourite Highsmith is The Cry Of The Owl, which I rate even more highly than her Ripley novels.

Highsmith loved exploring twisted duos, her most famous being the men who make a pact to murder each other’s wives in Strangers On A Train. In The Cry Of The Owl, the protagonists are a stalker and a person being stalked, but they end up reversing their roles.

Inspiration: Dahl’s Danny The Champion of the World was a turning point book for Samson

…gave you the reading bug?

Danny The Champion Of The World, by Roald Dahl. I grew up in a family on benefits and attended a middle-class school. I felt out of place, but a teacher there nurtured me, telling me I was going to be a published writer when I grew up, and giving my seven-year-old self hope! He introduced me to Dahl when he lent me his battered copy of Danny The Champion Of The World.

The touching relationship between the book’s widowed father and his son spoke to me, given that my father was ill and emotionally absent. Dahl sometimes gets misjudged for being a cruel author, there is also great tenderness in his writing.

… left you cold?

PRIDE And Prejudice, by Jane Austen. I can see that Austen is a brilliant writer, that her observations – written ‘with a fine brush on a little bit of ivory’ – are subtle and astute. But I derive little pleasure from reading her.

As a teenager, I much preferred Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and its unhinged, wild, surreal spirit; the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff stirred my soul, whilst Elizabeth and Darcy left me cold. But I’m aware that I’m in a minority here…