Fame, Family and Kidnapping: Q&A with Caroline Overington on The Ones You Trust

About The Author

Caroline Overington is a bestselling Australian author and an award-winning journalist.  She has written eleven books, including the top ten bestseller The One Who Got Away, and Last Woman Hanged, which won the Davitt Award for True Crime Writing in 2015. She has profiled many of the world’s most famous women, including Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton, and has twice won the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism. She has also won the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Journalistic Excellence and the Blake Dawson Prize for Business Literature. Caroline is currently Associate Editor at The Australian and is based in Sydney. You can find her online at www.carolineoverington.com.

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The Ones You Trust is a crime fiction novel – a genre that regularly dominates our weekly top ten list. Why do you think people love to read about crime?

Escape! And also for the thrill, the great big thrill of cracking a book open and within a few pages thinking: woah! Where’s this going to take me! Getting on the wild ride. A good crime book just pulls you in, and there’s no letting go until you get to the end.

You are an award-winning journalist – have your experiences in this field inspired your fiction crime writing?

So many. Too many. But if I’m being honest, real crime – the murder of wives and girlfriends by their partners, and by strangers – it’s depressing because it’s real. It’s not something I want to turn into book. I want my books to be a real escape from the awful violence of every day. I want them to be the kind of things that might happen, that could happen, but I hate the idea of people suffering in real life.

This novel touches on some sensitive material, particularly the kidnapping of a young girl. As a mother yourself, what was it like writing from the perspective of Emma, a character who has to navigate through life having lost her child?

Oh, well, if you’re a parent, you’ve definitely lost one of your kids somewhere along the way, in the super market, or at the beach, it happens to all of us, no matter how vigilant, and that feeling – the rushing fear, the panic – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Imagine it going on for hours and hours instead of for two minutes, or even ten minutes? You feel like you want to vomit, like you want to get down on the ground, turn into a small ball … it really is horrible!!

Who will enjoy this book?

I reckon if you’re a reader who loves a bit of a rush, this book is for you. I don’t think you have to be a Mum, and I don’t think you have to have a child in child-care, or anything like that, I think if you like a good keep-em-guessing mystery, it’s for you.

What are you currently reading?

Three things:

1. a) Leigh Sales’ new book, Any Ordinary Day, about shock and grief, which is a complete masterpiece.
2. b) The Girl on the Page by John Purcell, which is smokin’ hot, I’m blushing just thinking about it.
3. c) Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, swoon, and it’s a debut!!