Dark secrets as Lucy Foley discusses latest book at Festival of Chichester

The book is The Midnight Feast, the latest thriller from bestselling author Lucy Foley who is delighted to be discussing it at this year’s Festival of Chichester – virtually a home-town gig for Lucy.

She grew up in the Clapham and Patching area and also Slindon – and has fairly recently returned to live in the area, near Petworth.

Lucy will be speaking at the Festival of Chichester on Monday, June 23 at 7pm at Midhurst Library, Bepton Road, GU29 9HD, with tickets £5 available from The Novium.

“We were in London as lots of people are in their 20s and 30s but we came back partly to be close to my parents and partly because we love the countryside. We love the Downs and also we've got two little boys. It has been a wonderful move back and in a way it inspired a little bit the current book.”

Lucy is fascinated by the folk rituals around here and their centuries of meaning.

“The new book is set in a beautiful new countryside hotel which is actually in the West Country. I have not set it in Sussex, my beloved county! But it is a beautiful hotel built on old secrets and near ancient woodland. It's the opening weekend and it's very popular with the down-from-London lot. There is a heat wave, and tensions and temperature are rising! The local community are livid about the London lot coming down because of the cars and the noise and about the London lot coming down wanting to find their own version of the countryside and complaining about the smell of the manure. They want this picture book countryside that is all very fragrant!”

It's not long before a body is found at the bottom of the cliffs, and as ever in a book by Lucy, there are plenty of lies being told: “But it's not necessarily the lies that people tell other people. I'm really interested in the lies that people tell themselves about who they are and what their motivations are. Sometimes they are lying knowingly but other times they're just trying to present a version of themselves. But I do try never to trick my readers. I absolutely always try to play fair which is something I've always admired about Agatha Christie. I remember reading something about The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and the publishers telling her that the solution was too easy and that they wanted to make a change but she refused to take out one of the clues. It was so important to her to be completely fair to her readers.”

In fact, Lucy is currently writing a new Agatha Christie novel, a new Miss Marple at the request of the Agatha Christie estate: “When I was asked, I was so honoured but I was also absolutely terrified because I was just thinking how on earth can I add to what she did but I thought about it for a week and then started it and I am absolutely loving it. Since then it's been such fun. I absolutely love the Miss Marple character. I think I like her more than Hercule Poirot actually. I don't think I appreciated how brilliant she was until my third re-reading of the books. She is so witty. She is always in on the joke and she plays up to people's prejudices about her and the way that they see her. That's her invisibility and she plays up to that so knowingly and with such a twinkle. But at the same time she is quite dark. Her view of humanity is much bleaker than Poirot’s. She's seen the microcosm of everything and the behaviour that people can sink to.

“I've got to deliver the book in September, and it will be published in September 2026.”