Exclusive interview with author Susan Elia MacNeal on her WWII spy novel, number six in the Maggie Hope mystery series
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
Susan Elia MacNeal was inspired to write her novels by a visit to the Cabinet War Rooms in London. “They’re much bigger and more popular now,” says MacNeal. “This was back in 1999 when they were not as well-known. It was a random Tuesday, during a snowstorm. I was basically there by myself. And there I was, walking the same floors that Churchill and his staff walked during the height of the Blitz, and for a second…I felt like I time traveled for a moment. I swear I could hear the telephones ringing, smell the smoke from the cigars and cigarettes, feel the desperation of wondering whether London was still standing. And I knew I wanted to write about it.”
MacNeal’s latest book is set in 1942, as code breaker and spy Maggie Hope returns to London. She has advanced from being a typist in Mr. Churchill’s secretarial pool to become an SOE, a Special Operations Executive. The Nazis have temporarily paused the bombing of London. As Londoners continue to black out their windows at night, the darkness is covering a murderer stalking young women to recreate the crimes of Jack the Ripper. Somehow, the killer is targeting the women who are spies for Winston Churchill. MI-5 calls on Maggie to find the killer.
The Queen’s Accomplice is the sixth book in the Maggie Hope series. The city of London is a key character in the book whose historical figures include Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth, (not the current queen Elizabeth II, but rather her mother). The Maggie Hope series has made the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. Mr. Churchill’s Secretary won the Barry Award and was shortlisted for the Edgar Award, Agatha, Dilys, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Lefty Awards.
The Maggie Hope series might never have been except for a trip with her husband for the Muppets. Her husband, Noel MacNeal, is a voice actor and writer whose work includes NBC’s The Wiz Live, HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and w ho recently finished a new Netflix children’s show for Julie Andrews called Julie’s Greenroom.
“My husband is a puppeteer who often works for the Jim Henson Muppets,” says MacNeal. “At one point, he was doing a show called Bear in the Big Blue House for Disney Channel. It was quite popular in the UK. When he went to London to promote the show, I went with him. On our first night there, one of our lovely British friends showed up with a copy of Time Out London and as I was paging through, we both spotted an ad for the museum at the Cabinet War Rooms, the bomb-protected underground bunker where Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his colleagues ran World War II.”
MacNeal is currently writing her next novel in the Maggie Hope series, The Paris Spy. She’s part of a group of blogging female mystery writers called the Jungle Red Writers, with Rhys Bowen, Deborah Crombie, Hank Philippi Ryan, Lucy Burdette, and Julia Spencer-Fleming.
She lives in New York with her husband, son and an insane cat. She was born in Buffalo, New York.
The Queen’s Accomplice: A Maggie Hope Mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal Series: Maggie Hope (Book 6), Paperback: 368 pages, Publisher: Bantam (October 4, 2016). Language: English, ISBN: 978-0804178723 $16.00
