If asked, I’d say that I never use people I know as characters. Certainly not as murder victims.
That is not 100% true.
The exception—and honestly, the only exception—is With Friends Like These… in which I killed someone I knew who had grievously hurt—not physically, but nonetheless profoundly—a vulnerable friend.
Crimes like his fascinate and horrify me. There are too many legal (though unethical and immoral) ways to cripple someone’s life or hopes, and those transgressors don’t go to prison.
The story kept troubling me, and at some point, I heard myself mutter, “I could just kill him!” Then I remembered that I wrote mysteries and I could kill him.
And so I did.
And it felt great.
His original offense is not in the book. Instead, I stitched together his personality traits with a news story about another grave betrayer of trust, added a few students, a little Mother Goose, a bit of Oscar Wilde and advice from Dr. Spock. The result was With Friends Like These….
A note about the “now” of this book. When I wrote the series, I kept the time unspecific, hoping the books wouldn’t ever feel dated. However, my mind was on crime and I forgot about progress. Now, we live in a different world. For starters, you’re reading this on an electronic device Amanda could not have imagined. In this book, music is still played on vinyl or heard on a Walkman, and nobody has a cellphone, personal computer or other device we take for granted. The one thing that hasn’t changed is human nature with all its capacity for good and less than good. Look—it drove me to murder. But only this once. Honestly.
I hope you enjoy With Friends Like These… and I hope you don’t have any friends like that.
Gillian Roberts
March 2012