Neighbourhood Watch #author Lauren Williams

The annual Curlew Street scarecrow competition is back, and the residents of Melbourne’s inner north have never seen an entry like it. Shirt bloody, head and arms slumped over a scarecrow crucifix: Victoria’s most conservative Supreme Court Judge, Harry ‘The Pope’ Somerton, is dead.

Priyanka Pal, a former psychologist turned homicide detective, is disturbed when her investigation uncovers corruption close to home. Forced to confront the abuses of powerful men – the very reason she left psychology – Priyanka’s faith in the justice system falters. 

Emma Bloom is sophisticated, intelligent, and seems to have it all together. But her prickly, estranged sister, Margot, knows the truth. Their attempts at reconciliation spiral into crisis with the death of Emma’s abusive husband, The Pope.

As secrets unravel and Priyanka’s investigation cuts close to home, the sisters risk losing what fragile family ties they have left, and Priyanka’s career is on the edge. None of them will ever feel the same way about themselves (or their neighbours) again. 

Before turning to fiction writing, author Lauren Williams worked as a lawyer, diplomat, actor, arts journalist and museum communications manager (not all at once). 

This is her first novel.

To connect with Lauren ...
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Neighbourhood-Watch/Lauren-Williams

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

It's good morning, Lauren Williams. Welcome to Yellow Shelf, Lauren. Hello, hello. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, my pleasure. Debut author. Everyone knows I love supporting debut authors. Uh Lauren, I know your book's available right now for pre-order, but it's going to be available really soon. Congratulations. Tell us about Neighborhood Watch.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thank you so much. I'm so excited about Neighborhood Watch. Um, shall I give you like the pitch?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

You, you, you do it how Lauren does it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

All right. So the pitch for Neighborhood Watch. We have the annual Kulu Street Scarecrow competition. It's back, it's bigger and better than ever. But the residents of Melbourne's Inner North have never seen an entry quite like this before. Got hair, bloody arms hanging limp over a scarecrow crucifix. It's the dead body of Victoria's most conservative Supreme Court judge. But we've got Detective Sergeant Priyanka Powell to the rescue. She's first on scene. But she quickly gets sidelined by the old boys' club. Not cool. And then she starts to uncover corruption, even less cool. And in amongst this, we've got the Bloom sisters. Emma Bloom, sophisticated, privileged. She's living this sort of very like special kind of looking life. She's a philanthropist, she's in all these boards. But her prickly estranged sister, Margot, is not so convinced. She sees beneath the surface. And the story kind of follows these three women. You've got the lead up to the murder, what happens, and what happens after. And something that is useful to know is that Emma Bloom's husband is the very conservative Supreme Court judge who dies. So what has actually happened? You'll have to read to find out.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

One of the best pictures Yellow Shelf's ever had. Lauren, this is described, and you know, correct, correct if it's you don't think so. Crime, thriller, psychological. How are you boxing this into genres and subgenres?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Look, it's such a weird thing to sort of genre fy your work. I knew I was writing crime. Obviously, there's a dead body on the first page. Um, and I'm one of the one of the main characters as a detective. Um, I think I think for everyone, those sorts of the different subgenres mean different things. And so I think they're useful ones to kind of apply to it because it does have that real psychological element to it. I would say it also has a domestic noir element to it because you're very much looking at the family life of the blooms and and what's going on with them. Um so I think, yeah, all of they sort of all apply and all of are not a necessarily a perfect fit. I remember uh when I first spoke to my publisher about it, they called it crime plus. I was like, I like it, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I'm I love I love like the the talk around genres and subgenres. It's it's next level. Lauren, um also dark humor. This this this humor. Where did that come from? Yeah, that comes from you.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, I think look, I so I spent 10 years as an actor, and um for better or worse, I wound up doing a lot of Shakespeare. And the thing I always loved about Shakespeare, particularly with his tragedies, was how funny they were. And I've always found that humor really helps it sort of it's like salt on tragedy, like it enhances it, it um it helps you process it, it helps it land better. Whereas if you've got a book that's just angst, angst, angst, angst, angst, then it kind of you know, you start to get a bit numb to it. But I think a book that um balances the two not only makes it a more engaging read um and helps both the humour and the tragedy land better, but it also kind of just reflects real life. Real life is weird, it is absurd and it is funny. So I even in the worst possible moments, funny stuff can happen. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

And funny kind of keeps us safe, doesn't it? Like in those really difficult funny keeps you safe, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

And I mean, for me, it's definitely a coping mechanism and a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

And yeah, Lauren, you've skimmed over that. I'm gonna jump back into that. Debut author. Uh, people are gonna want to know about you. So, actor, tell us what do we need to know about you as an author, your your writing journey. Tell us, tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Where have I come from? Um, I'll give you the like the Cliff Notes version of my CV. So 10 years as an actor, realized I did not enjoy doing it as a job, but great as a hobby, not so much as a career. Uh, so then I studied psychology for a bit, and then I switched to law, and I worked as an international lawyer for a while. Um, and then I was a diplomat for a while and a negotiator. And um, you'll see a lot of my work, like experiences in the public service and also um dealing with law and um I suppose systems in this book. Uh, you'll see I don't I have somewhat of a skepticism of systems. Uh, you know, I've been on the inside, I've seen how they don't work. Uh look, good intentions and all that, but I find often the systems that we live in and that are designed to help us, particularly any group of people that is marginalized, including women, uh, they don't really work the way they're meant to, and they often let us down. So something that I found um in all these different across all these different professions, constantly over and over and over again, but these amazing women who could get really creative with making things work for them when they just weren't going to. And they're like, right, how do we this system is not friendly, let's make it work. Let's tweak this. Let's tweak this thing. So you sort of that's a lot very much influenced this book. Yeah. Um, yeah. And as for writing, look, I've always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a writer when I was a little kid. Uh my first book was heavily plagiarized, I'm pretty sure. Um, I think I was about five. It was about a couple of toys that fell out of bed and had to go on an adventure to get back in.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Bring that one back. Bring that one back. Yeah, I'll bring that one back.

unknown 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Oh, so good. And Lauren, are you enjoying like you, you know, you're about to get really crazy busy with book launch events, you know. Um, are you enjoying this journey as a published author? You know, what's that like now?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

It feels I was saying to I got given my own copy of the book uh last week. Wow. And I said to uh my publisher, when I touched touched it, I was like, oh, this just makes me feel stressed. I'm never gonna open it. Can I not see the inside? If I don't know about it, it's not gonna just don't look. So on one hand, it's super exciting. Yeah, like this dream come true for little Lauren and Big Lauren. Um, and on the other hand, it just it feels so strange, and then this thing's gonna be out there. And I've got a friend who published a novel, and I remember reading her book and thinking, wow, there's so much of her in this. And it's kind of like she's kind of naked on the page. And I know that that's very much the same for me with this book. So it's a bit like I don't know how I feel about this, but um, we'll see how we go. I'm really excited about it though.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Feel it, feel the journey, but lean in, you know, to just just enjoy. I mean, I think it's it's such an accomplishment. Well done. Lauren, it'd be amiss not to ask. More to come. Uh, do I get you to come back on Yellow Shelf with future books?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Well, uh, the second one featuring Detective Sergeant Priyanka Powell is actually with my publisher right now. Um, yeah, we're just about to start the editing process and that'll be out next year. Tentative working title is the font. We'll see uh what they think of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Uh um that's good to know because then you and I get to come back and chat again and have a bit of a laugh and uh talk about the next one. Congratulations. I hope you land a fabulous new audience in many subgenres of uh neighborhood watch. Congratulations. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you so much. Cheers. Bye.