What is it about secrets and the dark side behind a seemingly ‘normal’ domestic front that fascinates us?
Speaking frankly, I grew up with silently-warring parents. So I assumed that all marriages were like this. The finale came when my mother discovered a love letter from my then 19-year-old pen friend to my father. (He’d hidden it in a bureau in the sitting room.)
Despite the agonising fallout, the writer side of me – even then – felt that if this was in a book, no one would believe that the anti-hero would have been daft enough to hide such a letter in plain sight in the family home.
This led to my first lesson in secrets and domestic noir. Make them believable even, or especially, if they’re true.
My experience also taught me the importance of describing the small details of a ‘safe’ home-on-the-verge-of-destruction’ to make the reveal even more shocking. I could still describe to you the lattice pattern on the bureau; an irrelevant detail engrained on my mind. Nevertheless, I won’t because 50 years on, it still hurts too much.
I’m however a sucker for cosy kitchens both in personal life and fiction. How I love sitting with my back against our poster red Aga for warmth! Yet as I write this, an idea for a scene is coming into my head. It involves a scorned lover slamming a rival’s hand on the hot plate after discovering the latter has secretly been sleeping with his wife.
Where did that come from? Must write that down for future reference….
Knife racks are also handy in the world of secrets and domestic noir. As my heroine says at the beginning of ‘Coming To Find You’: ’The knife rack is on the side. I’ve always thought it was a dangerous thing to have in the house. An armoury of lethal weapons, hiding under the guise of domesticity. But isn’t that exactly what a family is like?
Even the smallest reference to domestic detail can sharpen that delicious build up to a scary secret. Take this paragraph from my new novel ‘My Sister’s Secret’ about two sisters and a psychiatrist.
‘Dr Starling is shaking out his napkin and placing it on his lap, very deliberately as if matching hidden coordinate points on an invisible map. Then he changes the conversation so fast that it takes me by surprise. ‘Sisters are so interesting. There is a particular competitive bond between them that you don’t always see with brothers. A mixture of mind games, laced with love and hate.’

The napkin (hopefully) lulls the reader into a false sense of security.
Perhaps I should say here that I never intended to write domestic noir until I went to prison. Not as an inmate but as a writer in residence of a high-security establishment which had its fair share of dangerous, troubled minds.
My students often wrote about their ‘parties’ which were not the frivolous sort but in fact, ‘work parties’, referring to their duties in the prison. Some worked in the kitchens which seemed to me like a huge leap of faith, given the possibilities. Hot water and sugar can be a lethal combination when thrown at enemies and although it didn’t happen when I was there, some of my men wrote about it from previous experience.
Another of my students was shipped out overnight (the term for moving to another prison) for allegedly putting budgerigar poo in the kitchen ice cream. It was certainly a different take on domestic noir but one which I don’t have the stomach to use in my fiction.
Then there was the prisoner who followed me around (outside class) for advice on his well-written novel. Something about his pleasant face spooked me and I committed the cardinal sin of Googling him. Let’s just say his crime involved two domestic items: a hairdryer and a hot bath. His girlfriend was lucky to survive.
Perhaps because of the intensity of my job, I turned from writing romance to psychological suspense.
I’ve always loved secrets in plots and it felt natural to combine them with unexpected crimes in homely places. The excitement is to keep readers guessing – and me, the author too! That’s why I don’t like planning a detailed plot because the best twists fall into your head while you’re writing. It’s a magic that happens en route.
Personally, I think the appeal of secrets and domestic noir stems from a hidden jealousy we shouldn’t have, towards ‘perfect’ couples plus a guilty feeling of ‘I knew they were too good to be true’ if they break up.
Yet domestic noir has become much more complicated than the days when a character simply has to leave a phone around for infidelity or a criminal act to be discovered.
This is where research is crucial. In MY SISTER’S SECRET, I interviewed several psychiatrists to make sure that my domestic noir twist (based on a family secret) could really happen. It could. However, the complexity was such that I wrote an author’s note at the end which gave some explanation without revealing the plot. Credibility is everything. At least, it is to me as a reader.
Location is also vital. Cellars fit the bill because they can hide secrets and murders for years underground. So, I’ve decided, is the ordinary loo. Ours has started to make to make a noise after flushing that rhymes with ‘tarts’, ever since we had some work done in the house. Part of me is now thinking about a plot where body parts have been secretly hidden in the pipework. Oooh. That gives me the shivers.
In fact, I hide behind a blanket when watching domestic noir tv with my second husband. But I do love guessing the secrets that come with it.
Talking of husbands, there’s usually at least one in my books. The secret is in the word ‘marital’. Change the letters around and you get ‘martial’. Maybe someone’s having a joke up there….

Jane Corry is the author of nine top ten Sunday Times best-sellers. Her new book MY SISTER’S SECRET is published by Penguin on June 18 in paperback, audio and eBook.