Carol Smith

Page Updated: 08/09/2004

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Carol Smith - Page 1

Hidden Agenda

13 Aug 04

Home From Home

Grandmother's Footsteps

Unfinished Business

Family Reunion

Can You Guess The Murderer?

Interview with Tangled Web

by Carol Smith

About the Author

Bibliography

First British Edition timewarner (2004)

Hidden Agenda
Devastated by the shocking news that an old schoolfriend, Suzy Palmer, faces execution in Louisiana for the murder of her children, London rabbi, Deborah Hirsch, enlists the aid of her former classmates in an attempt to get her off. The Suzy they’ve known and loved all these years could never hurt a fly; she can’t be anything but innocent.
As adults they all have high-powered careers - Lisa Maguire, the eminent QC; Helen Kruger, the Harvard anthropologist; and Olivia Fernshaw, actress and mimic, only allowed into their exclusive group when poor Miranda dropped out. Aided by Miss Holbrook, Suzy’s feisty former art teacher, and Markus, the German jazz musician who is Lisa’s latest flame, the friends unite to beat the clock as Death Row draws steadily closer.
Back and forth across thirty years they slowly piece together what has happened - and realise that even more shocking than Suzy’s plight is the knowledge that one of their number has betrayed her.
'I was hooked by the very first page - and a gripping story about the power of female friendships - a winning combination!' Marika Cobbold
'A gripping and beautifully constructed story' Lizy Buchan
'Carol Smith has done it again, an unput-down-able thriller with a twist… Smith holds the reader in her grasp from start to finish, and gives us compelling psychological insights on the way' Julia Neuberger

First British Edition timewarner (2003)

Paperback - timewarner (2003)

Home From Home
Oppressed by the aftermath of September 11th, New York novelist Anna Kovac decides she needs a change of scene if she’s ever going to finish her latest book. The opportunity comes in the form of an advertisement requesting a house-swap and, on the spur of the moment, Anna agrees to exchange her elegant Manhattan townhouse for a villa in Tuscany. Along with two friends from England, Genevieve and Candy, she moves to the picturesque village of Montisi for the summer.
Their rural paradise is bliss and all three women rapidly adapt to Italian life. Until mysterious things start to happen over which Anna has no control: her credit card inexplicably exceeds its limit; text vanishes from her computer screen. When her New York architect and friend, Larry, falls from scaffolding to his death, she panics and rushes home, only to find that the locks have been changed and she cannot get into her house. Someone appears to have stolen her identity, emptied her bank account, sold her possessions - even abducted her beloved father.
Who is the stranger whose advertisement she took entirely on trust, and who has managed to destroy her life so effectively? Before Anna can find any answers, however, the situation takes a darker twist with a second violent death ...
Praise for Carol Smith
‘Gripping right to the end’ Daily Mail
‘The end left me so scarred I had to sleep with the light on' Woman’s Journal

First British Edition Little,Brown (2002)

Grandmother's Footsteps
The cold-blooded butchery of a mother and her daughters triggers a wave of outrage in the media. Though not immediately obvious because they are so widely-spaced, this is just the latest atrocity in a series. An elderly spinster arranging flowers in a church, her little dog dead at her side. A schoolmaster with a party of boys. A bank manager. A yoga teacher. A social worker. Someone appears to be stealthily stalking them, targeting the virtuous and clean-living.
It takes the patient persistence of cartographer William Huxley to sense a link the police have missed and slowly unravel the puzzle. Stuck at home as a house husband with the two-year-old Morwenna while his high-flying wife, Edwina, plays with fire, William, the puzzle-solver, slowly assembles the pieces, aided solely by a cub reporter and the valiant cleaning lady, Mrs P.
When a prominent public figure is hacked to death, events take a sudden sharp curve for the worse. Particularly when it rapidly becomes clear that William is the next intended victim . . .
A Note From Carol…
Having written five psychological thrillers in six years, I had to search around for a new twist when it came to embarking on number six – Grandmother’s Footsteps. My aim is that no-one should ever guess my murderer’s identity and I have been getting more successful at concealment the more I learn about my craft.
This time, I decided, we would start off knowing the murderer’s identity through an embittered, first person narrative, and let the victims be randomly selected…at least, apparently so. It is the hardest thing I have done so far, keeping that voice authentic, and I rewrote the first person chapters over and over.
The title is taken from the children’s game where one person faces a wall and the others creep up behind them. In the book a relentless killer, seeking vengeance, creeps up behind the luckless victims who appear to have nothing in common. It takes an unemployed cartographer, William Huxley, to use his knowledge and skill at solving crosswords finally to figure out what is going on. Just as he is about to become the next victim.
But – wait – we have known all along the murderer’s identity. Or have we?

‘Grandmother’s Footsteps… will keep you entertained, reading and guessing all the way to the end’ Crime Time
‘With its teasing insights into the mind of a serial killer, Grandmother’s Footsteps keeps you guessing until the end’ Sainsbury’s Magazine

First British Edition Little,Brown (2000)

Unfinished Business
The brutal murder of golden girl, Jinx McLennan, early one Sunday in her exclusive Kensington house, shocks the neighbours and triggers a police inquiry that delves deeply into her colourful past. Single, childless, Jinx nevertheless had it all - brains, popularity, her own successful business, plus a wide-ranging network of lovers and friends. Closest of all were her own small design team, the surrogate family who’ve been with her from the start: devoted, long-suffering Dottie and her artist husband, Sam; gentle, reliable Ambrose, the team's backbone; Wayne, the zany trainee with the outrageous lifestyle; and Serafina, hot on the fast track, who wants everything Jinx had, but now. Plus millionaire genius, Damien Rudge, the goose who lays their golden eggs. The trail goes cold until, in a shock revelation, it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity. The wrong person has been murdered. Out there somewhere is still a crazed killer with unfinished business who will have to kill again.
'As a thriller writer, Carol Smith is very good at drawing you in, and is very good at describing places and characters' Mail on Sunday
‘If a pacy thriller is your thing, Unfinished Business will suit you to perfection… an additive read’ Sunday Express
‘A thriller which certainly keeps you turning those pages… gripping right to the end’ Daily Mail

Paperback - Warner (2000)

Family Reunion
As her eightieth birthday approaches, Odile Annesley, who has been living alone in France for forty years, contacts her scattered grandchildren to give them details of her will. The five granddaughters see it as the perfect opportunity for a family get together abroad. Solid Clemency, the perfect wife and mother; London property dealer, Madeleine; Paris dress designer, Elodie; academic Canadian Isabelle; poor, deprived Cherie, the misfit. And Harry, the golden boy. Each has grown up in their own world but, like all families, the shared characteristics are there. Then the killing starts, the secrets spill and it is clear that one of them is very different indeed.
'A humdinger of a story with sll the ingredients for a top-class mystery novel. Well written, bags of atmosphere and truly believable characters' Publishing News
‘A gripping read’ Family Circle
'Full of action, twists and surprises, this intricate suspense story offers a fascinating new take on the nature of family ties' Good Housekeeping
‘The end left me so scarred I had to sleep with the light on' Woman’s Journal

About The Author
Carol Smith started her publishing career as a secretary at Thames & Hudson. At that stage she wanted to write and publishing seemed a good way to get into the right circles. Later she went to New York and worked for two years at Basic Books doing a wide range of jobs before returning to England for a spell at Heinemann followed by fifteen months in the Story Department of M.G.M., which involved sitting in an armchair reading new novels all day and taking publishers and agents to expensive lunches.
By now it was clear she would never make it as a writer - everyone else did it so much better and besides, there were already far too many of them - so she decided instead she would like to become a Literary Agent. At A.P. Watt & Son, the oldest agency in the world, she handled short stories, journalism, television plays and new writers and really developed a taste for contemporary fiction and first novels in particular.
In 1976 she left Watt to start her own agency with a handful of writers, at that time mainly unknown but who included Peter Straub. When Carol did her first deal for over a million dollars for Straub's novel, Ghost Story, she celebrated by buying herself a diamond ring. She continued to do so for every million dollar deal. Within a year, she had acquired two more so that the joke amongst the publishing scene was that people would grab her hand at parties and ask: "How're ya doing?". Carol went on to buy an opal ring (her birth stone) for the sale of her first novel. Other clients include Sarah Harrison whose Flowers In The Field was a bestseller and the subject of a BBC TV documentary.
Carol's love of food and entertaining is strongly apparent in Darkening Echoes and in her career. She represents Katie Stewart and Clarissa Dickson-Wright and has, in the past, represented Madhur Jaffrey, Ken Hom, Antonio Carluccio, The Cooking Canon and Susan Hicks (the BBC Fish Series cook).
Carol has synaesthesia, the condition which means that she sees words as colours. Synaesthetics are inclined to "unusual" experiences like deja vu and clairvoyance and indeed, Carol has had psychic experiences.

Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Hidden Agenda (timewarner, 2004) Aug 04

Home From Home (timewarner, 2003) timewarner Pbk Sep 03

Grandmother's Footsteps (Little,Brown, 2002)

Unfinished Business (Little,Brown, 2000)

Family Reunion (Little,Brown, 1999) Warner Pbk Jun 00

Double Exposure (Little,Brown, 1998)

Kensington Court (Little,Brown, 1996)

Darkening Echoes (Little,Brown, 1995)