It’s not that she doesn’t understand the appeal of the twists or recognize her readers’ wants - “I really feel that pressure,” she admits - but she can’t cater to them. Some readers may disagree, of course - try talking to anyone who just watched the Hulu adaptation of Nine Perfect Strangers and tell them that the “what’s Masha’s secret?” question is irrelevant - but on this, Moriarty holds firm. And the mystery’s just something that’s by the by.” “My strength is my characters,” she says matter-of-factly. But for the author, what happens at the tail end of her novels is far less interesting than the 400-odd pages leading up to them. Moriarty knows that readers have come to expect shocking endings and unveiled secrets from her books, and Apples Never Fall, about a family coping with a member’s sudden disappearance, certainly delivers.

Her latest release, September’s Apples Never Fall, is no different - 10 days after its debut, the book was holding steady in the top spot of Amazon’s “Thrillers & Suspense” best-sellers list. Indeed, the success of those novels, plus more recent works like Truly Madly Guilty and Nine Perfect Strangers, has installed Moriarty securely in the genre’s hall of fame. “I feel that I almost accidentally fell into that, first with The Husband’s Secret and then with Big Little Lies.” “I don’t think of myself as a mystery writer, and I especially don’t like being called a writer of thrillers, because I think my books are definitely not thrilling enough,” the novelist says, speaking from Sydney, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Apples never fall book