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Cambridge’s Karen McManus shines with a teen heist caper set in Maine
McManus talks jewel heists, “Succession,” and screenplays ahead of her Sept. 17 at Trident Booksellers & Cafe.
I love a good mystery or thriller. Always have.
Sure, there were “The Boxcar Children” and Nancy Drew, but as a ‘90s kid, there weren’t many contemporary teen mysteries. After I devoured The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries in middle school, I had to hit the adult stacks.
If I was a tween or teen today, I’d be nuts for Karen McManus’s books.
Even in 2024, there aren’t many authors writing young adults mysteries and thrillers in general. A handful do it really well — Holly Jackson and Jennifer Lynn Barnes come to mind. Cambridge’s own McManus is right up there with them.
And save for her Bayview series set in California, her catalog is set in New England.
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I became a fan of the Walpole native with her pitch-perfect YA voice in “One of Us is Lying,” her 2017 debut that became a buzzy No. 1 New York Times bestseller and then a two-season series via Peacock.
While that book gave “The Breakfast Club” with murder vibes, her newest drop, “Such Charming Liars,” had me thinking: “Succession” with a jewel heist (and murder.)
The nutshell: Kat and her mom Jamie live in Boston with Gem — a jewel thief grandma-figure who has taken them under her shady wings. Jamie wants to fly straight, but Gem convinces her to do one last heist: stealing a priceless necklace from millionaire Ross Sutherland’s daughter, at Ross’s 80th birthday party in Maine. Meanwhile Kat’s one-time step-brother Liam and his con-artist dad, Luke — Jamie’s ex — are headed to the same Maine estate on a con of their own. The threads of the mystery intertwine in the last fourth or the book, where the action really picks up.
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I called McManus ahead of her Boston YA Author Panel with Sarah Henning and C.L. Herman at Trident Booksellers Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. We talked “The Parent Trap,” plotting vs. pantsing, TV adaptations, “The Breakfast Club” — and screenplays nobody asked for.
Boston.com: I’m interested in how you found your way into YA mysteries. It’s a niche genre, but you have a knack for it.
McManus: I think the genre chose me. I’d loved writing as a child, but never really thought of it as a career I could do. When I read “The Hunger Games” in 2014 I got inspired to try writing again. I wrote a really bad takeoff of “The Hunger Games,” which went nowhere, as it should have [laughs] but it reignited my love for writing.
I wrote a second book, a fantasy — that was better, but not great. Then I got the idea for “One of Us is Lying.” That was a better idea, I was a better writer, and that’s the book that sold. I think it helped that I was a voracious mystery-reader my whole life.
Your first book, “Once of Us is Lying” was sparked by “The Breakfast Club.”
Around 2015, I was working in marketing, driving to work, and the theme-song from “The Breakfast Club” came on. I’m an ’80s kid, so I turned it up. I started thinking about how that narrative construct — bringing people together who seem like they have nothing in common, but forcing them to interact, and they realize they’re not so different — is evergreen. I thought it could be fun to do some kind of update on that with a dark twist. And the phrase “The Breakfast Club with murder” popped into my head. I thought about it the whole commute—- the whole day, really. When I got home, I started writing.
That’s awesome. That book kicked off your Bayview series, set in California. Aside from that series, your other books are all set in New England.
New England is what I know, what I love. If I need to research [it’s easier.] For example, with “You’ll be the Death of Me,” everything takes place within a day. I know Boston people, if you put unrealistic timelines into your book, they are gonna call you out. So I actually followed the route that I gave my characters to make sure it was feasible. You have to get lucky with traffic, but it’s possible.
[laughs] So what inspired this book? It’s a heist caper, which was new for you.
I always wanted to write a heist book, but I never knew how that would fit with the type of stories I like to write— realistic contemporary fiction. Or as realistic as you can get when teens are solving the murders. [laughs]
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I was watching “The Parent Trap” and thought, “What if both of those parents were con-artists?” I really didn’t do anything with it at the time. I just wrote it down in my idea file. Later, I was reading about a jewel thief and that another spark I wrote down: “jewel thief grandmother could be interesting.” It just all started to come together. I thought, what if there are two competing heists?
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I’m a reformed pantser. [laughs] I’m now a plotter. I did mostly pants “One of Us is Lying.”
Wow.
It turned out pretty well, so I just assumed I was a pantser. But I’ve learned that I have two types of ideas — some are bolts of lightning, some are seedlings. Seedlings need more time and planning. This one took a lot of planning. In draft one, there were elements that weren’t working. Had to shift a bunch of things around. Of course, with a mystery, every time you shift, you change something fundamental. So it took a lot of fine-tuning.
The end was a little ambiguous. Are you planning a sequel?
[laughs] I think that probably drives some people crazy, and other people really enjoy it. It does leave a door open. But I don’t know. I think in stand-alones, but I also like ambiguous endings so there’s room for more if the right idea hits. But I don’t currently have a plan for that.
You went to grad school at Northeastern for journalism, graduating in ‘04. Did that help with writing fiction?
I never worked as a journalist. I was in PR and working with a lot of journalists, I thought that could be an interesting career move. And then I decided not to do that. I switched into marketing. I thought, ‘I just got a degree that I’m not using!”
[Laughs]
But as it turns out, it’s an amazing degree for writing fiction, because it really does teach you to look for the holes in the story, to anticipate reader questions, to write on deadline. So it served me well.
Growing up in Walpole, you wanted to be a writer.
I did. It was the first thing I remember wanting to be. My second-grade teacher told us to write a story, and I was just blown away by that. It was the first time I ever thought that I could write a story.
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I wrote all up through middle school and a lot of high school. I still have some of the old books I created. But it got harder as I got older, because I was more ambitious. At the time, I didn’t know anyone who was a writer. I didn’t know how to go about it.
Your debut was adapted for a TV show. That’s rare.
It was surreal. And it’s an unusual thing, because so many books do get optioned, but don’t make it through the process. So it was exciting.
I was able to go to the pilot-shoot in Vancouver. They had rented all these houses, people were building sets, Jennifer Morrison was there – she directed the pilot. I thought “All these people are here because I wrote a book.” That was both humbling and exciting.
I bet. What did you think of the show?
I thought it was really fun. It was really well-written and well-acted. There were some moments that pulled directly from the book that I thought were great.
I know most authors aren’t, but were you involved in any way in creating it?
I was a consultant, so I was given the opportunity to review scripts, but I wasn’t involved in setting the strategic direction for the show. That’s definitely something — having been through the process, if I were to do it again— that I would want in the future.
Have other books been optioned?
Two have, neither made it through development. But it’s no rush. Books can get picked up at any time in their life-cycle.
True. Going back to this new book, Kat is from Boston, but most of the action is set in Maine. Why Maine?
I wanted it to be far enough away from her home. Initially it was going to be New Hampshire, but there’s a pivotal moment towards the end where the characters do something that is not legal in New Hampshire, and is legal in Maine. So I switched states.
[laughs] True, OK. And you mentioned “The Parent Trap” as an inspiration, but the Sutherland family reminded me of “Succession.”
Totally!
[laughs]
I love “Succession.” There’s definitely some Logan Roy vibes happening with Ross Sutherland.
Absolutely [laughs.] What are you working on now?
Now, I’m taking a little bit of a break because eight books in eight years did burn me out a tiny bit. [laughs]
[laughs] I bet. Will your next be another YA mystery?
Possibly. Or I sometimes think I’d enjoy trying an adult mystery.
Is this one of the books optioned?
Not this one. But I got interested in the whole idea of screenwriting, so just for fun, I wrote a pilot script based on this book.
Wow.
It was fun. It took a while because it was a brand new medium, but my film agent liked it. So we’re figuring out what, if anything, we’re going to do with it. If nothing else, it was a cool learning experience.
That’s awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed an author where they said they went and wrote a screenplay —
Which nobody asked for.
Exactly!
[Laughs] I just wanted to learn, and I learned by doing.
What was that like?
It was really fun, actually. It’s so different. In a novel, you can take six pages to explain somebody’s state-of-mind. In a screenplay, you have a couple sentences and it has to be visual. So there were a lot of challenges. But it was fun.
Would you do it again?
I would. I enjoyed the challenge.
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Interview has been edited and condensed.
Lauren Daley is a freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.
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